Padres Find No Relief in 4-3 Loss

Goose Gossage threw 15 marvelous minutes of batting practice on Monday, but Baby Goose (a.k.a. Lance McCullers) threw 15 mindless minutes of relief in the ninth inning, proving he is indeed human and that maybe the Padres need the real Goose more than they realize.

There had been the tendency recently to actually think the Padres could get by with McCullers, 21, and Gene Walter, 24, as their short relievers. But Walter failed miserably in New York last Saturday night, and now this.

McCullers, a former Phillie minor leaguer, entered a tie game in the eighth, tossed a 1-2-3 inning, but then yielded a single, a walk, a walk and finally a game-winning hit by Juan Samuel.

Phillies 4, Padres 3.

And, two hours away, the Dodgers were winning in New York, extending their lead in the National League West to 7 1/2 games.

Afterward, McCullers, his muscular right shoulder wrapped in ice, sat in a chair watching the Dallas Cowboys play the Chicago Bears on television. And although Howard Cosell was nowhere to be heard, McCullers, just the way Cosell would have wanted him to, told it like it was.

“Basically, it’s all my fault,” he said of his first major league loss. “ . . . I should have controlled myself and thrown strikes. But I didn’t connect tonight, and tomorrow is a new day. But I made it all happen. I walked two. I put myself in the predicament. If I get the chance to save the game or beat them tomorrow, I will.

“Instead of being a pitcher, I’ve become a thrower. I tried rearing back and throwing it by the two left-handers (Greg Gross and Jeff Stone, the men he walked). But if I throw strikes, they have to hit me to beat me. I was slinging the ball instead of pitching.”

But, Goose? He was pitching. In perhaps the major attraction of the day, Gossage walked out to the mound at 6:10 p.m. to throw batting practice, the first time he had faced actual hitters since arthroscopic knee surgery on Aug. 1. Naturally, the hitters buckled up for safety. For the first time this year, everyone (except for Kurt Bevacqua and Al Bumbry) wore batting helmets.

Eleven times, batters swung and missed. After 15 minutes, he was through, huffing and puffing, but happy nonetheless. Manager Dick Williams gave his stomp of approval, and it looks like Gossage will be ready to pitch again on Sept. 1.

Meanwhile, Padre starter Andy Hawkins wasn’t glad about his seven innings Monday night, which included a two-run Phillie rally in the first.

“In the first inning, everything was right here,” Hawkins said, pointing to his belt. “It took me two innings to adjust, but that was just long enough to cost me two runs.”

Still, the Padres tied it with runs in the second (Carmelo Martinez scored on Phillie starter Shane Rawley’s wild pitch) and the fourth (Terry Kennedy scored on Jerry Royster’s sacrifice fly). Rawley’s sacrifice fly put Philadelphia ahead, but Graig Nettles drove in Garry Templeton with a two-out single in the seventh to tie it at 3-3.

In the Padre ninth, Tony Gwynn led off with a sharp single to right, but Steve Garvey hit into a rare 6-3-5 double play.

Explanation: Gwynn had been running when Garvey chopped a slow roller to the shortstop, Tom Foley, and was actually around second base when Foley controled the ball. Foley threw to first to get Garvey, but Gwynn was running for third. First baseman Mike Schmidt, no stranger to that throw across the infield, whipped it to third baseman Rick Schu.

Third base umpire Harry Wendelstedt called Gwynn out when it looked like Gwynn was safe.

Explanation: Gwynn slid into Schu’s shoe and never touched the bag.

“When I first did it, I thought I was safe,” Gwynn said. “When he called me out, he said I never got to the bag. I thought I was there, but when I looked down, his (Schu’s) foot was there. If I had it to do over, I’d do it again . . . It was a heads-up play by Schu. Most guys wouldn’t stick their shoe in there and take the chance of getting cleated.

“I can see the headlines tomorrow: ‘Schu’s Shoe Ends Padre Rally.’ ”

The Phillie rally never ended because McCullers never found his control. Pitching coach Galen Cisco, afterward, said McCullers kept opening up his shoulder upon delivery, which might have caused this. Still, Cisco also said: “He has been amazing. Outstanding. And I hope he goes another 10 innings without getting scored on (like he’d done before).”

The Phillies, though, probably wouldn’t have liked that, considering they traded him away in 1983 when they obtained Sixto Lezcano. Recently, the Phillies wanted him back, but were denied.

Prior to the game, McCullers spoke with some of his ex-teammates, for the Phillies have many young people these days, including pitcher Don Carman who turned out to be the winning pitcher.

“Everyone knew he would be a good pitcher,” Carman said of McCullers. “In the minors when he was traded, a lot of guys were surprised because they (the Phillies) were so high on him. No one expected it. It looked like he was a ‘can’t-miss.’ ”

And he didn’t miss.

Until Monday.

“They were my old teammates,” McCullers said, “and I wanted to do well. But I just lost control of myself. It was a combination of not concentrating and trying to overthrow.”

Padre Notes

Pitcher LaMarr Hoyt (tendinitis of the rotator cuff) threw lightly Monday, and, although there is the possibility that he could start Saturday’s home game against Montreal, pitching coach Galen Cisco said it was more likely that he wouldn’t pitch until the following weekend. Said Hoyt of the injury: “It’s like a little toothache in your shoulder. It’s always there.”