Padre Notebook : No Matter the Competition, Kruk Impresses

Here’s how John Kruk spent his Wednesday:

- Being a rookie, they told him to play in a morning B game. So he woke up extra early and wound up with an extra-base hit.

- Being a rookie, he had to stick around for the afternoon A game, and in the first inning, center fielder Bobby Brown injured his shoulder, so Kruk got to play.

He drove in a run with a sacrifice fly. Then he homered to right field.

Spring batting average: .500 (16 for 32).

- Being a rookie, they made him play the whole A game. Later, while he was showering, his manager, Steve Boros, was saying: “It’s phenomenal. You look for him (Kruk) to have an 0-fer (go hitless) sometime. But he hits it hard even in B games. I’ve never seen a guy hit the ball that hard that consistently in spring training.”

Boros also said Kruk, a left-handed hitter, hits left-handed pitchers as easily as right-handers.

“I don’t think it matters,” Boros said. “You could roll it up there, and he’d do something with it.”

So Kruk might have won the 24th and final roster spot.

But, being a rookie, you never know.

Boros won’t say.

Brown injured his shoulder while running for a fly ball hit by San Francisco’s Chili Davis. Brown appeared to have caught up to it, but slipped and fell on the outfield warning track, which is sloped slightly.

The baseball fell loose, Brown fell on his left shoulder and he left the game. X-rays were negative. His status is day-to-day.

When Brown left, right fielder Tony Gwynn volunteered to take his place in center and Boros agreed. So Kruk went to right.

Gwynn: “The last time I played center was against the Mets in ’84. I dropped a ball in the sun, and rumor has it that Dick (Williams) said: ‘He’ll never play there again!’ But I told Steve I can play there, and he said: ‘I’ll try anything.’

“But it was tough. I didn’t know how to shade people, so I played everybody straight up and hoped they wouldn’t hit it in the gaps.”

They didn’t.

The Padres won, 6-5, on Jerry Royster’s eighth-inning home run off Giants’ right-hander Mark Grant. The score had been tied, 5-5.

Royster, whose blast narrowly avoided an orange Cadillac, said: “I don’t get too many opportunities against right-handers. . . . But it was getting late in the day.”

So the Padres avoided the most dreaded part of spring training--extra innings.

“I’m buying you dinner,” a couple appreciative players told Royster.

Outfielders Rusty Tillman and James Steels were sent down to Las Vegas Wednesday. Steels had a knee injury last year, and Boros said he’s not fully recovered. Tillman hit only .190 this spring, much less than Boros envisioned.

This leaves 30 players on the Padre roster (including pitcher LaMarr Hoyt).

Six more must go, and they will be announced Friday, Boros said.

Hoyt will be here Friday, but he has meetings scheduled during the day, so he might not work out until evening.

“We’ll get the lights on for him,” Boros said. “We need him to throw on the side. That’s one day closer to getting him ready.”