Padres Get 14 Hits in Win Over the Expos

The Padres were leading the Expos, 5-2, in the sixth inning Wednesday night, and were well on their way to an eventual 14-hit, 6-2 victory when there came a play that broke up the monotony of the pennant race.

Leading off the Expo sixth, Terry Francona lined a ball down the first-base line. Steve Garvey dove but was unable to grab it.

Then, it happened. Instead of running away from the ball, Expo ballboy Martin Cote, 15, made a mental error and tried fielding the ball as it rolled toward him in foul territory.

Oops. Since he’d touched it, Francona had to settle for a ground-rule double, not a potential triple.

The boy, in shame, put his hands over his face.

“I was scared I’d lose my job,” Cote, who speaks only French, said through an interpreter. “It was in front of 20,000 people. It was on TV.”

So, who cared that the Padres remained eight games behind the Dodgers? Who cared that the Expos, who had lost their third straight, remained six games behind the Mets?

The players, that’s who. Baseball players, being baseball players, take their own jobs seriously, so the game and pennant race took precedence with them. Eric Show (9-7) took the victory, although he wouldn’t take any questions from the media afterward because he felt they’d been too negative when talking and writing about him.

“Just write that the temperamental Show, who has won just two games in two months, doesn’t want to talk,” Show said. “ . . . I hope you realize it’s nothing against you and that I’m not trying to act like a prima donna. We won, and we’re all happy.”

Yes, the Padres did win, looking like the Padres of old. Garry Templeton, batting leadoff, had three hits. Tony Gwynn had three hits and stole two bases. Garvey had a double. Graig Nettles had three hits. Terry Kennedy had two hits. Carmelo Martinez and Kevin McReynolds had singles, too.

“We’re starting to play better,” Nettles said. “So the hit explosion doesn’t surprise me. I expect us to keep it up the rest of the year.”

There were only two negative parts to this game for the Padres. In the third, when the Padres were leading 2-0, Expo catcher Mike Fitzgerald had lifted a ball into shallow left. Templeton drifetd back from his shortstop position and seemingly was about to catch it. But Martinez, the left-fielder, called for it, Templeton moving away.

Martinez then let it fall in front of him.

The only other problem was leaving men on base. The Padres stranded nine in the first four innings and 13 overall. The Expos, though, left 10 runners on base themselves, including two in the ninth inning when Show appeared to be in trouble for the first time.

Fitzgerald had singled to left-center and pinch-hitter Scot Thompson had walked. As Tim Raines approached the plate, the word BRUIT , (which means “noise” in French) flashed on the scoreboard. And the French-Canadian fans in Olympic Stadium, all 20,571 of them, stood and cheered for Raines.

That was interesting itself because a recent New York Times story on drug use in baseball quoted Raines as saying he’d carried gram bottles of cocaine in his back pocket during games in 1982, and that was why he always slid head-first into second. Also, he said he had used the cocaine between innings in the dugout restroom.

Still, they cheered him when he homered in the fifth inning Wednesday night, and they cheered again in the ninth when he grounded into a double play.

Show then struck out Vance Law to end the game.

And the ballboy walked off the field, wondering if he’d be back tomorrow. He’d initially been so worried about it that, for 15 minutes, he’d sat there with a long face, not even knowing that he’d cut himself going for the ball.

As he walked in, no Expo official approached him. And then one of the umpires patted him on the back and said: “Don’t worry about it.”

He planned on being at the ballpark early today, for, just as the Expo players were saying, “tomorrow is a new day.”

Padre Notes

The Padres have won nine of their last 13 games, yet have actually lost two games to the Dodgers during that span. . . . The Padres play a doubleheader against the Mets on Friday in New York and will send Mark Thurmond (4-7) and Roy Lee Jackson (1-2) to the mound. . . . If LaMarr Hoyt (sore shoulder) can’t pitch Saturday as scheduled, Dave Dravecky will move up in the rotation and pitch that day, with Eric Show pitching Sunday. . . . Expo President John McHale had said to the Montreal Gazette on Monday that drug use in 1982 probably cost his team the pennant. He also said of Tim Raines, who admitted using cocaine that year: “He probably cost us six, eight, 10 games doing things we couldn’t believe he was doing. We moved him to second base for a while, and there were times he held the ball without making a play. He’d be on first base, and he couldn’t run. They picked him off. He couldn’t find balls in the outfield.” Raines, asked Wednesday if drugs cost the 1982 Expos the pennant, said: “No. I can’t really say that. You have 26 teams. Certainly, the Expos weren’t the only team using drugs. So how can you say the Expos lost because of drugs?”