Padres Shown Up Again, 5-4

Eric Show shouldn’t have shown up. He was nervous about pitching to begin with. As he put on his socks 40 minutes before Saturday night’s game, he said: “I have no idea how I’ll throw. No clue. I could go 150 pitches if my arm’s fine, but if it isn’t, I might not go 30.”

He went 19.

His first pitch was a strike. Then he gave catcher Terry Kennedy a workout--throwing high, low, wide and slow. He threw six straight non-strikes. Then to Houston’s Davey Lopes he threw a nonsense pitch, a slow curve that wouldn’t curve. The ball sailed way over the left-field fence, and the first-place Houston Astros were on their way to a five-run first inning and a 5-4 victory over the Padres in front of 28,612 at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

Show, who had been on the disabled list since July 8 with elbow tendinitis, might be back on the list soon. No doctor was available to examine him, but he told teammates the pain is the same as before. Pitching coach Galen Cisco was so upset he wouldn’t comment.

In all, Show got one out, a Phil Garner fly ball that was caught at the foot of the left-field fence. He lasted 4 1/2 batters. The count was 2-0 to Kevin Bass when Manager Steve Boros replaced Show with Lance McCullers, which didn’t do much good either.

McCullers immediately walked Bass and then gave up a three-run homer to Jose Cruz--a line drive that was hit about 12 feet high but carried about 340 feet.

So right off the bat (Houston’s), San Diego trailed 5-0. McCullers settled down and Craig Lefferts helped, too, and the Padres cut the lead to one and had the bases loaded with two out in the ninth against reliever Dave Smith.

Graig Nettles struck out.

On the night, 15 Padres struck out.

“I’ve been proud of this club lots of times this year, but never prouder than tonight,” said Manager Steve Boros, startled by his team’s near-comeback victory.

But Steve Garvey said: “I thought we had enough character. We don’t need any more character-building games like this.”

The Padres need victories.

Rookie John Kruk, who still thinks he might have a heart attack any minute, went 3 for 5 with three RBIs, doing the best he could to win it himself. But one man vs. nine isn’t a very fair matchup. Houston’s Mike Scott, who leads the league in strikeouts, whiffed 11 batters (Garry Templeton three times) and got his 11th victory. Aurelio Lopez and Smith closed it out. This series used to be crucial, but the Padres have done an el foldo two straight nights and now trail the Astros by a season-high 8 1/2 games.

“We got to win tomorrow (Sunday) and do something in our nine games remaining against Houston,” Boros said.

Kruk started for left fielder Kevin McReynolds, as Boros hoped to get something--anything--started. Some players continued to grumble, wondering why McReynolds wasn’t in there, but Kruk shut them up with his hitting. His first-inning double to the right-center-field wall cut the Astro lead to 5-1 as Tim Flannery (who has been on base 14 of his last 20 at-bats) scored from first. Kruk doubled again in the third to the same spot in right-center but was left stranded at second. In the fifth with two out, he singled up the middle, scoring McCullers.

Earlier, Kruk had wandered around the batting cage saying (kidding): “My heart . . . My heart. I hope someone here knows CPR.” Soon, though, he was the crowd’s heartthrob.

“Well, I was waiting to die in the sixth or seventh inning,” Kruk said afterward. “But I held on.”

McCullers, after that rocky start, pitched extremely well, striking out a career-high seven batters in 6 innings. The Padres were still close, trailing 5-2 in the seventh. Scott gave way to Senor Smoke (Lopez) in the eighth, and after retiring Kruk, he promptly walked Nettles and gave up an RBI double to Garvey (6 for his last 12 and 11 for his last 24). But Lopez smoked one by Terry Kennedy for a strikeout (Kennedy’s third on the night) and then struck out Marvell Wynne with only a puff of smoke--a slow breaking ball.

Before the bottom of the ninth, the theme from “Rocky” blared from the stadium’s loudspeakers, and the Padres, indeed, had some fight left. Templeton finally made contact--a leadoff single to left. Pinch-hitter McReynolds struck out looking (the 14th Padre strikeout on the night), but Flannery singled Templeton to second. In came ace reliever Dave Smith, who has a house in the San Diego area (and is Flannery’s best friend).

Smith’s first batter was Tony Gwynn, who had earlier hit into two double plays, and Gwynn singled to center to load the bases. Kruk grounded to first, scoring a run, before Nettles struck out swinging to end it.

Scott, meanwhile, continued to confound hitters with his split-fingered fastball, but some people think he’s using his fingernails to scuff the baseball. He denies this, naturally, but Lefferts actually stole one of the scuffed-up balls as evidence.

Sure enough, there were scuff marks in between the seams. Lefferts found two balls like that.

“When I came in the game, the ball was scuffed up like that,” Lefferts said. And when Lefferts threw his warmup pitches with the scuffed-up ball, they flew wildly by the catcher. These scuffed balls really move.

But what could Boros do?

“When I was with the Royals as a coach, I had one of the photographers with the Kansas City paper use a telephoto lens (to see if Gaylord Perry was doctoring the baseball),” Boros said. “And we got pictures of him pulling the jar (of Vaseline) out of his pocket, putting the stuff on his hair, holding a towel up in front of him like he’s toweling himself and then taking the stuff and putting it on the back of his head. Since then, my attitude has been what good does it do?