Padres Blow 5-0 Lead, Lose to the Giants : Brown’s Homer Gives San Diego Its Third Straight Loss, 6-5

“Who’s in last place?” Bob Brenly asked. “Who’s in last place!”

Not the San Francisco Giants, who lost 100 games last year, but appear to be 100 times better in 1986. On a strangely warm Saturday in Candlestick Park, the Giants overcame a 5-0 Padre lead and won, 6-5, on Chris Brown’s seventh-inning two-run homer off reliever Lance McCullers.

McCullers had just entered the game, too. Starter Eric Show, 9-3 lifetime against the Giants, had been hanging on for dear life as the Giants fought back, scoring four runs in the fourth inning. Then in the seventh, after Garry Templeton booted Will Clark’s ground ball, Padre Manager Steve Boros waved for McCullers.

Show plopped the baseball in McCullers’ glove and said: “Good luck.”

Good riddance.

Brown hit McCullers’ first pitch to deep left-center.

The Padres (7-6) have lost three straight here.

“Tomorrow, we’ve got to score 40 times and see what happens,” said right fielder Tony Gwynn as he left the clubhouse wearing his stereo earphones.

Certainly, five wasn’t enough. The Padres, facing San Francisco starter Jim Gott, scored one in the first inning on Terry Kennedy’s RBI single and scored four more in the second on five hits. That second inning was their most productive of the season and was the first time they had batted around all year.

The score was 5-0.

But these are new and improved Giants.

Their record: 7-4.

Their standing: Second place.

“I hope we win 100 games,” Brown said.

With a straight face, he continued: “Whether we win or lose, our attitude is the same now. We’re happy-go-lucky. If we lose, it’s ‘Let’s go get ‘em tomorrow.’ Everyone’s pulling for each other on the bench. There’s no ‘I can do this,’ or ‘I can do that.’ It’s ‘We can do it.’ ”

Manager Roger Craig: “I saw a bad attitude last year. Guys just showed up for three, four hours and that was that. So we started from spring training to show them a positive attitude and make them want to win . . . . The attitude’s been fantastic. . . . Like with Jeff Leonard. During spring training, I just gave him a day off. I told him ‘Take the day off.’ He looked at me funny and said: ‘What do you mean?’ I told him ‘Go and spend time with your family or something.’ It’s good mental therapy.”

McCullers will need some physical therapy. After Brown hit that homer and after Leonard came up and hit a double, McCullers reared back to throw a fastball to Brenly and felt a twinge in his lower rib cage. He had to leave the game with a pulled muscle.

“Well, I had kind of strained it yesterday (Friday),” McCullers said. “And then the last pitch I threw today made it act up. How’d I strain it Friday? I don’t remember. It was before the game. I just moved wrong.”

Craig Lefferts replaced him and retired the side, giving the Padres the eighth and ninth innings to tie the game. With one out in the eighth, Steve Garvey--who did not start at first base for the first time since Sept. 29, 1984--had a pinch-hit single and went to second on Carmelo Martinez’ pinch-hit single.

But reliever Greg Minton replaced reliever Mark Davis, and Jerry Royster struck out. And then Tim Flannery, who had the first four-hit game of his career, made his only out of the day, grounding to second base.

In the ninth, Gwynn, Kevin McReynolds and Kennedy went down in order, although Gwynn hit a rocket to left that just happened to fly right at Leonard.

“Tomorrow, I’m gonna go out and bunt four times to try to get out of it,” said Gwynn, who is hitting .273. “I’m getting perturbed. Very perturbed. It’s one thing when I’m not hitting the ball at all, but when I’m hitting it hard four times and getting nothing out of it? I guess I shouldn’t complain. I’m hitting .270 and some guys aren’t even doing that.”

Show didn’t complain, but he had a right to. That four-run Giant fourth, the inning that changed the game, went like this:

Brown singled. Leonard flied out. And Chili Davis walked. Runners on first and second.

But then Brenly hit a little grounder inside third base that Graig Nettles could have fielded. Instead, he let it roll foul.

It stayed fair.

By then, it was too late for Nettles to force Brown at third or make a throw. Bases loaded.

Then rookie second baseman Rob Thompson hit a three-run double to left.

Shortstop Jose Uribe scored Thompson with his own double.

Before Saturday, Thompson and Uribe were hitting a composite .175 (11 for 63).

“Wow,” said Boros, who hung his head in his scorecard afterward. “ . . . That one against Cincinnati was kinda tough, too, the one when (Nick) Esasky homered (in the ninth) to win it, but we finally got runs on the board. Then, their relief pitchers (Mike LaCoss, Bill Laskey, Davis and Minton) shut us down.

” . . . Was Show surprised that I took him out? No. He really struggled today. We had asked him between the seventh inning how he felt, and he said: “I feel pretty good.’ We said he’d start the seventh, but that we wouldn’t wait long.”

Giant fans have been waiting a long time for a good team. After Friday night’s victory, Davis, who’d just gone 0 for 3, walked out to a crowded parking lot and was greeted with chants of “Chili! Chili!”

And after the Giants’ seventh victory Saturday, Brown also was given the royal treatment.

He told a friend: “Only 93 to go.”

Padre Notes Dane Iorg started for Steve Garvey at first base and had his first two hits of the season. . . . Chris Brown’s home run off Lance McCullers broke a scoreless streak of 16 innings by Padre relievers. . . . If Dave Dravecky doesn’t throw a complete game today, LaMarr Hoyt probably will make his first appearance of the season out of the bullpen. . . . Carmelo Martinez also should return to the lineup today. He has missed his last six starts because of tendinitis below his left knee.