Padres Talk Their Way to a Victory : Pep Chats Help to Spark a 6-0 Win Against Atlanta Braves

Steve Garvey looked around the room, saw 24 smiling faces (the 25th player, Goose Gossage, was probably smiling at home, too) and said: “ This was a championship team performance.”

Say what?

Isn’t this the team that put Manager Dick Williams in such a funk recently that for two straight days he was the first man out of the clubhouse, sitting alone on the team bus for a half hour? Isn’t this the team that prompted Padre General Manager Jack McKeon to say early Thursday, “I don’t know what the hell’s the matter . . . In the last home stand, I didn’t see any enthusiasm there. I just don’t know”?

It is.

Never mind how it happened, but the Padres looked impressive Thursday night here, defeating the Braves, 6-0, in front of 13,243 fans who even had the gall to apparently boo Dale Murphy. With the score 0-0 in the fourth inning, Steve Garvey, who ended up with four hits, hit a ball to deep center off Brave starter and eventual loser Zane Smith. Murphy went back, back, back but couldn’t catch it against the wall. The ball splashed into a puddle, and Garvey had a triple.

The fans booed. But who? Murphy or Smith or just the team in general?

Anyway, Carmelo Martinez, who had three hits and four RBIs on the night, singled to drive in Garvey, and the Padres were off. Andy Hawkins (14-3), who at one point retired 15 straight Braves, pitched a six-hit shutout. Galen Cisco, the pitching coach, said Hawkins has never kept the ball down in the strike zone better than he did Thursday night.

And, amazingly, there was pep out there. It started with the manager. There had been a major thunderstorm in the first inning, which caused a 1 hour, 17-minute rain delay, and Williams, who hadn’t spoken to hardly a soul in the two prior days, watched television with the boys. The team, in general, was looser.

How to explain it?

What else? Pep talks.

Deacon Jones and Steve Garvey: Everyone knows Garvey doesn’t like to rest. It’s a sensitive topic, really, because the Garv usually won’t admit he’s tired. Still, Jones, the Padre batting coach, noticed that Garvey was “forcing the bat through on his swing.”

He wanted to talk to him about it, but it was a delicate subject. Jones had sat up at night, wondering how to do it without offending Garvey.

Just before batting practice, he did it. He asked Garvey if he was tired. Garvey said that maybe he was a little. Jones said it might be a good idea to move away from the plate and think about going to right field more. Garvey agreed. Garvey handled it quite nicely.

Garvey got four hits.

“I’ve been trying, but you need a ball over the plate to hit the other way,” Garvey said. “But over the 15 years I’ve played, the best way for me to get my timing back is by going the other way . . . Actually, Deacon and I are always talking about what he may see or what I may see.”

Ozzie Virgil and Carmelo Martinez: Just a little pep talk here. Before every at-bat, Virgil, the third base coach, yelled “Stay back . . . Stay back!” What he meant was that Martinez should be waiting on the pitch more, not leading so much with his body. Finally, it sunk in. Martinez had two one-run singles and a two-run double.

“I feel great,” Martinez said. “But I can’t let it get to my head.”

Galen Cisco and Andy Hawkins: Just a little one here, too. During the rain delay, Hawkins and Cisco had sat alone in the dugout. Actually, neither of them is exactly a peppy guy. They talked about a few hitters, and Hawkins then sat there and pondered what it would be like without Gossage, who had arthroscopic surgery Thursday and will be lost for at least three weeks.

“I was depressed about Goose,” Hawkins said. “That (the news about the surgery) is crushing. He’s the main man. Our spirit reflects his. Our overall personality reflects his. It’s a big loss.”

Hawkins then went out and avoided the bullpen, throwing his first complete game since May 25.

Bruce Bochy and Tim Stoddard: The last one. When Bochy had been on a hot streak in early June, Stoddard had borrowed Bochy’s favorite bat and broken it. “If he goes 0 for 15, you can blame me,” Stoddard had said that day. He was 0 for 5 and counting, but Bochy said, “I told him he’d put the jinx on me by saying I might go 0 for 15. So he took it off.”

And Bochy went out and hit a solo home run Thursday night.

Absolutely wacko.

Padre Notes

On a positive night, here is something negative: The Padres set a team record Thursday, hitting into five double plays. . . . Manager Dick Williams changed his lineup and batting order Thursday night. He replaced third baseman Graig Nettles with Kurt Bevacqua and catcher Terry Kennedy with Bruce Bochy. It was done since the Braves threw a left-hander. And Williams also moved Garry Templeton from eighth to second in the batting order, Tony Gwynn from second to third and Steve Garvey from third to fourth. “It also gives us more speed higher in the lineup,” Williams said. With right-hander Joe Niekro throwing tonight in Houston, Kennedy and Nettles are back in the lineup, and the order will be back to normal. . . . Andy Hawkins on the state of the Padre bullpen without Goose Gossage: “This would be a good time for someone to step forward, and somebody will. It’ll be a gut check out there.”