Gossage Surrenders 3-Run Homer as Pirates Rally to Beat Padres, 7-6

During the seventh inning, a skunk ran onto the playing field at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

Many of the San Diego Padres held their noses.

But by the eighth inning, it was the Padres who were stinking up the joint. Bill Almon’s three-run home run off Goose Gossage erased a two-run Padre lead, and Pittsburgh added an unearned insurance run when shortstop Garry Templeton committed two errors, a rarity for him, in the ninth.

Graig Nettles’ ninth-inning RBI made it closer, but reliever Pat Clements held on, Pittsburgh winning, 7-6.

Gossage (2-2) has walked nine batters in his last five games and is struggling.

“Well, I’ll still go to him,” Padre Manager Steve Boros said. “The coaches tell me he’s throwing better than any time he’s been here in April and May. He’s still our guy. . . . I want to just fight my way through the sixth or seventh innings, so I can turn the ball over to him in the eighth.”

The eighth-inning disaster spoiled a rather eventful evening. Bip Roberts got his first major league hit after 20 straight outs. He beat out an infield single, and the 20,515 people here stood and applauded him. The game ball was thrown into the dugout, and teammate Marvell Wynne wrote the following inscription on it:

“About (Bleeping) Time, Bip.”

Later, Steve Garvey, Carmelo Martinez and Bruce Bochy each homered to give San Diego a 4-3 lead. Tim Flannery and Martinez teamed on a suicide squeeze play in the sixth, and the lead was 5-3.

But Gossage came on to pitch the eighth. He walked the leadoff man, Mike Brown, and Tony Pena followed with a single. Gossage recorded two outs, but Almon hit one deep to left.

The highlight, other than all those homers and Roberts’ hit, was the skunk. It ran onto the field near the first-base dugout, and players ran away from it. One media representative, Martin Henderson, went to interview a groundskeeper named Charles Townsend, who said owner Joan Kroc ordered him not to kill the skunk. She told him to put the skunk in a box or something.

Townsend said: “We’re not about to put that thing in a box.”

Roberts will put his game ball on his mantelpiece.

“I prayed to the Lord, and he took it off my shoulders,” Roberts said. “I’d been praying a lot. That’s what kept me strong. That’s why I’d smile every day.”

It’s a great story. Roberts had been drafted last winter from the the Pirates and essentially was told the second baseman’s job was his to lose.

He lost it.

It was embarrassing. Included in the team’s theme song were the words “With Bip Roberts on the bases, the Padres can go places.” But he didn’t even know what the bases looked like. He began 0 for 20. And he’d gone from bat to bat to bat, trying to find one that would suit him and his bosses. He had been swinging for the fences, and Boros, hitting coach Deacon Jones and first base coach Sandy Alomar all suggested he use a heavier bat that would make him hit grounders.

One day, in San Francisco, he went back to his own little bat without telling the hierarchy.

He got chewed out.

In his own mind, he was freaking out.

“I’ve been thinking about it too much,” he admitted Friday.

Saturday came. In his first at-bat, while using ex-teammate and current Pirate pitcher Bob Patterson’s 34-ounce bat, he hit a slow grounder to second baseman Johnny Ray.

Ray is his former buddy.

Ray is the guy who showed him around spring training back in 1985.

Ray’s throw to first couldn’t beat the rookie.

And Roberts had his single. First, he made a fist. Then, he clapped. Then, Alomar shook his hand. The crowd was standing, cheering. Home plate umpire Paul Runge delivered the ball to the dugout. Roberts stood on first base, on his tippy-toes. Suddenly, he felt so big.

When the inning was over, Tony Gwynn ran out to give him a low-five, and Garvey reached to congratulate him, too. Templeton handed him his hat and glove.

He was so high. On an ensuing grounder up the middle, he did a head-first dive for the ball.

But by the sixth inning, he was gone. With right-handed Cecilio Guante replacing lefty starter Bob Kipper, Tim Flannery pinch-hit for him with Martinez on third. Flannery put down a perfect suicide squeeze bunt, and Martinez scored standing up when Guante failed to field the ball barehanded. That was the run that made it 5-3, Padres.

When it rains, it pours. Kipper (0-3) was supposed to start for the first time this season on April 12, but an April 10 rainout pushed it back to April 15. Then, that game was rained out. So he didn’t get his first start until April 19.

That tends to throw you out of whack. On Saturday, the Padres whacked the heck out of the ball against him.

Garvey’s homer to left in the third inning accounted for two runs, and just as Garvey was tipping his cap, Martinez homered to left-center on the very next pitch.

The Pirates tied the game, 3-3, in the fourth. Sid Bream singled off Padre starter Andy Hawkins, advanced to second on a balk and scored on Pena’s single. Jim Morrison then homered to left. He knew he hit it well because he walked 10 feet after it left his bat, watching it fly.

Bochy led off the bottom of the fourth with another homer to left, and the Padres were winning again. It sounded like a Springsteen concert. The crowd chanted “BRUCE!”

Much later, when Gossage left, the crowd chanted “BOO!”

Padre Notes

For nine innings Friday night (which lasted about 2 1/2 hours), Pirates General Manager Syd Thrift sat next to Padre GM Jack McKeon. But mission was not accomplished, which means Rick Rhoden is still pitching for the Pirates. The Padres and about eight other teams are interested in obtaining Rhoden, and that’s the problem. Thrift apparently isn’t sure which one to deal with. McKeon has hinted that he’s willing to wait about two more weeks, but that’s it. He says he doesn’t need Rhoden that badly, not with LaMarr Hoyt back and looking good. Ironically, today’s matchup is Hoyt vs. Rhoden. Padre Manager Steve Boros said Hoyt will throw about 75 pitches and that’s all. “Even if he throws good, he won’t talk us into 90 (pitches),” Boros said. “We want him all year. We’ll bring him along slowly.” . . . Now, if the Padres and Pirates do eventually work out a deal, rookie second baseman Bip Roberts could be involved. Roberts was drafted away from the Pirates this winter, but if the Padres want to send him down to the minors (which seems to be what they’d like to do), they’d have to offer him first to Pittsburgh. Couldn’t McKeon work out a deal in which the Pirates would waive their rights to Roberts? Yes. “That’s definitely possible,” McKeon said. But McKeon also said he’s still not sure whether Roberts can play big league ball. He said Roberts hasn’t been used enough yet. . . . Meanwhile, Boros is still searching for that “perfect” leadoff man. “I was hoping I’d have one (a leadoff man) on April 7th,” he said. “I didn’t. But a lot of clubs face the same type of problem. You never have that perfect lineup. . . . It’s a never-ending struggle. (But) if Tim Flannery is our leadoff hitter, we’re in good shape. But, you see, I want to have the very best lineup possible. So it’s my search for the perfect 1986 San Diego Padre lineup that keeps me thinking about these other possibilities.” So, in Boros’ mind, the leadoff man will either be Flannery, Roberts, Tony Gwynn, Jerry Royster or Marvell Wynne. He’s thinking about it.