Those Cubbie Holes Leave Big Openings for the Padres, 5-3

The Cubbies keep leaving this city with their heads down, with their heads hidden in clubhouse cubby holes. It happened once (Remember Cub-busters?), and now it’s happened again.

On Sunday, the Padres won it, 5-3, with a three-run sixth inning, an inning of Cub errors. Then, a sellout crowd of 50,226 screamed for Goose Gossage and got him. Gossage got the save, and the crowd got the Beach Boys, who performed afterward.

Meanwhile, the Cubbies were in their cubby holes, perfectly ready to see bleacher bums again, not beach bums. It has been an exhausting trip for the Cubs, as they have shown a surprising inability to score runs. In five road games, they’ve scored 11 runs and lost three times. Something’s wrong here.

Not that the month of May is the time to worry, but Jim Frey, the manager, shut his clubhouse door afterward for about 20 minutes, talking to his team privately. And he did talk. He is not a screamer. He is a motivator.

“Yes, I did,” said Frey when asked if he’d held a meeting. “Would you like to know what it was about?

“Everybody goes through this two or three times a season. I referred to a series against Philadelphia last year when they killed us. Everyone wrote the Cubs off, said we were dead. And we weren’t. We won 96 games. We’re going through a tough period, but we have to hold our heads high, stick together and grind it out, grind it out day after day after day. And things will work out.

“This isn’t the time to point fingers. Our club is good enough to win when we’re not playing our best. So just wait until we start cooking. My main point behind this was that we’ll come out of it and start rolling. The easiest thing in the world is to look for someone else’s mistakes and point fingers.

“I wanted them to know how I feel. I don’t give a--what anyone else says. I think this club will win a ton of games, and that’s that.”

Nonetheless, Ryne Sandberg, Shawon Dunston and Dennis Eckersley were the first ones to leave the clubhouse, hardly looking as if the pep talk had made them peppy. And in a corner cubby hole, Keith Moreland, who made the throwing error of the day, was throwing things again, again wildly.

“We’ve been struggling all year,” Moreland said. “As far as that meeting, he (Frey) is just doing his job, which means trying to keep the bunch together. We just haven’t swung the bats. I guess it’ll come.”

So, the moral of this story is that baseball, and life in general, works in strange ways. For instance, Padre starter Dave Dravecky didn’t throw a strike until 1:10 p.m. (the game began at 1:07), walked two batters, and soon the bases were loaded. But Moreland stranded the runners, grounding out, and the Cubs didn’t come close to scoring a run again until Davey Lopes, their new cleanup hitter, hit a three-run homer in the eighth.

Meanwhile, the Padres had things go correctly, which figured. Carmelo Martinez, who had worn a Cub hat in the Padre clubhouse before the game, had an RBI single in the second, scoring Tony Gwynn who had doubled down the line in left.

But the best stuff came in the sixth. Gwynn, who said he is more comfortable hitting at home because he can analyze his swing on his VCR, singled to right, which is strange because he rarely pulls the ball.

“I never try to (pull the ball) because I seem to get out in front of myself,” Gwynn said. “But I really think being at home helps. I can see what I’m doing. I go home and watch tapes.”

Next up was Steve Garvey, who lined a ball to right field for a double, Gwynn stopping at third. And so Garvey, who later left the game with a stiff neck, has now hit in 12 consecutive games. He thinks he’s on a roll, which is precisely right.

Graig Nettles then grounded a ball down to first, where Moreland was playing. Normally, Moreland is the right fielder, but he replaces left-handed hitting Leon Durham at first base against certain left-handed pitchers. One is Shane Rawley. Another is Jerry Koosman. And another is Dave Dravecky.

Moreland fielded the grounder, conceded Gwynn’s run, and went to throw to first, to the pitcher (and starter and loser) Dick Ruthven. But Moreland couldn’t get the ball out of his glove and ended up throwing the ball behind Ruthven. It rolled and rolled, and Garvey came around to score.

“I screwed it up,” Moreland said.

The mistake made it 3-0, with Nettles on second. Kevin McReynolds then hit a ball right back to Ruthven, the ball hitting the pitcher’s right knee. It bounced toward third and ended up as a single. George Frazier came in to replace Ruthven, who limped off, and the Cubs moved in their infield to try to prevent another run.

Frazier, with no outs and Nettles on third, got Terry Kennedy to hit it back to the mound, but Frazier turned and started a double play instead of holding Nettles. Nettles scored, and it was 4-0.

This was not Cub baseball.

And it was certainly strange that Lopes was the one to bring the Cubs back to 4-3 with a three-run homer in the eighth.

Said Lopes, who replaced Durham as the cleanup hitter: “I’m not a cleanup hitter. I’ve never said so. But I do what the manager wants. If he wants me to hit eighth, I will. If he wants me to lead off, I’ll lead off. I know there are guys on this team more capable of hitting cleanup.”

In the Padre eighth, reliever Lary Sorensen walked Gwynn and then balked him to second. Gwynn scored on Kennedy’s single, his second hit of the day.

On came Goose. And another Padre victory.

Padre Notes

Steve Garvey’s injury is not believed to be serious. He first injured his neck on Saturday night and then woke up in pain Sunday morning. He came to the ballpark early for treatment, and it wasn’t until 15 minutes before the game began that he felt he could play. . . . Because the Padres have an off-day, pitcher Mark Thurmond will miss his next turn in the rotation. Originally, he’d been scheduled to pitch Wednesday against St. Louis, but LaMarr Hoyt will start instead. On Tuesday, it’ll be Andy Hawkins (6-0) vs. John Tudor (1-4). . . . Shortstop Garry Templeton had two more hits Sunday, his batting average now climbing to the upper .200s. For a while, he was just below .200.