Padres Get Some Help, Sweep Astros

ewhere over the Pacific Ocean, while Dick Williams and Jack McKeon were sleeping early Friday morning, Gene Walter and Miguel Dilone sat in a jumbo jet.

Their mission: To save the Padres.

They flew all night from Hawaii, where their minor league team had been playing. They sat in LAX for over two hours, awaiting a connection to San Diego. They walked into the clubhouse of San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium at 12:30 p.m. Somebody gave them uniforms.

And then, beyond Williams’ and McKeon’s wildest dreams, they accomplished their mission.

The Padres defeated Houston, 6-4, in the first game of a doubleheader at San Diego Stadium.

Walter pitched the final three innings, earning a save in his major league debut.

Dilone, a 30-year-old center fielder whom the Padres quietly signed 10 days ago, had three hits, scored two runs, stole two bases and had the game-winning RBI. And in the second game, he had a single, another steal, a triple and scored the winning run in a 2-1 Padre victory.

So, on this good Friday, the Padres perhaps turned a corner. First, they didn’t waste the momentum gained from Thursday night’s come-from-nowhere victory, and the scoreboard now said they were 5 1/2 games behind the Dodgers. Second, they found that maybe, just maybe, Walter can be counted on out of a bullpen that hasn’t been able to count to three outs. Third, the acquisition of Dilone, a Montreal Expo reject, injects speed into an otherwise rather slow lineup.

Is this team saved?

Certainly the little things began turning their way in the first game. Dave Dravecky, who has had pitiful luck for over a month now, yielded four runs in the first four innings, runs that Manager Dick Williams felt quite comfortable calling “cheap.”

How to define cheap? In the first, Bill Doran dribbled a single down the third-base line, stole second, went to third on a ground out and scored on another infield grounder. In the second, Mark Bailey walked, and Dickie Thon singled. After the runners were moved to second and third, Doran again dribbled a hit toward third for an RBI.

In the third, Jose Cruz bunted down the first-base side, and Dravecky’s throw to the base was low, rolling into right field. Cruz stood on third. He scored on Bruce Bochy’s passed ball. In the fourth, pitcher Nolan Ryan, hitting .085, doubled to right and scored on Doran’s third single, which finally did make it out of the infield.

It was 4-2, Astros, after four innings.

But Garry Templeton homered to left, cutting it to 4-3. And, in the sixth, Ryan was beginning to tire. Facing Nettles, he threw a ball way over his catcher’s head. Facing the next batter, Carmelo Martinez, he kept throwing it in the dirt. Eventually, after Bochy’s RBI single, Dilone stepped up and singled to center, scoring Tim Flannery with the winning run.

In the second game, Dilone had singled, stolen second, gone to third on a ground out and scored on Steve Garvey’s drag bunt, putting the Padres ahead, 2-1 in the fifth. And when the Astros had loaded the bases in the eighth, reliever Roy Lee Jackson struck out Phil Garner to end the inning. Mark Thurmond then came in to save the game for Eric Show (8-7).

But who was this guy, Dilone (pronounced Dee-lone-ay)?

As the Padre fans settled into their seats for the first game, the public address announcer read the starting lineup, introducing Dilone as the leadoff hitter. No reaction. Dilone, who hit .341 and stole 61 bases for Cleveland in 1977, had been playing in Montreal, but was about to be sent down in early July when the Expos had a surplus of outfielders.

But he didn’t want to go. Being a veteran, he had that right. He asked to be released, and he was. McKeon, who had managed him in Oakland in 1978 and ‘79, was seeking someone who could steal bases and so he signed him July 27, sending him to Las Vegas to get in shape, but alerting no one outside the Padre organization.

He was suddenly called up and stuck in center field, where Kevin McReynolds normally plays. McReynolds is out with a bruised heel, and since he’s hitting just .227, and since Dilone did what he did Friday night, who knows who the real starting center fielder will be?

Williams says he’ll cross that bridge later, probably when McReynolds is ready to play Sunday.

And Dilone was so exciting that the 23,656 fans cheered him when he struck out in the fourth. He walked in the first inning, put on his sliding gloves and stole second. He eventually scored on a Ryan balk. In the third, he singled, put on his sliding gloves, stole second (always head-first) and scored on Tony Gwynn’s single.

“I’m sure (speed) is why he’s here,” Gwynn said before the game.

Walter and Dilone had both been in Hawaii with the Las Vegas team prior to the Padres’ Friday doubleheader. Originally, Walter was to have joined the Padres last Tuesday in Cincinnati, but the strike ruined that. When the strike was settled, he kept waiting for a call that said the Padres still wanted him.

On Thursday morning, while he was in bed at 10:30, his Las Vegas manager, Bob Cluck, knocked on his hotel room’s door and said, “Major leaguers don’t sleep that late.”

He and Dilone caught the red-eye that night.

Walter, a left-hander who had a 7-5 record and 2.75 ERA with Las Vegas, was summoned to relieve Show after Dilone’s single put the Padres ahead, 5-4, in the bottom of the sixth. His first major league pitch to Doran got away from Bochy, the catcher. Doran walked, and when Walter got behind the count, 1-0, to the next batter, Garner, pitching coach Galen Cisco came out. Jackson and Craig Lefferts began to warm up.

But Bochy told Cisco that a lot of Walter’s pitches had actually been strikes. Cisco said, “Go get ‘em.” He did.

Garner hit into a double play.

“I can’t even put it into words,” Walter said when asked to describe his feeling after the double play.

Padre Notes

The boo-boo of the night Friday went to Carmelo Martinez. While he was on first base, Tim Flannery popped up into foul territory, just beyond first base. Houston’s Dickie Thon caught it. While Martinez took his time jogging back to first, Thon threw him out. A close second:A Nolan Ryan balk enabled Miguel Dilone to score from third in the first inning, and immediately afterward, Ryan walked toward the umpire who called it, Joe West. Ryan must have been talking pretty dirty because two Astros had to keep West from decking Ryan.