Scott Sinks Padres Six Games Under and Into the Cellar

The last -place Padres continued to avoid home plate Friday night, as Mike Scott shut them out, 5-0, in front of an Astrodome crowd of 31,142.

Not since 1983 have the Padres been six games under .500, and they’re about six-feet under, too. You know it’s bad when your manager comes into a game hoping for a 1-0 or 2-1 victory, and that’s exactly what Steve Boros was thinking before game time. And his hopes might have been answered, except that third base umpire Doug Harvey ruled against them on a close call in the sixth inning. The Astros went on to score four runs that inning, and the Padres couldn’t score four runs if they even wanted to, so they lost again.

And since Cincinnati won a doubleheader from the Dodgers and Atlanta defeated San Francisco, the Padres and Braves are tied for last place in the National League West. Boros, asked what he thought about that, said: “We’ve got our best baseball ahead of us.”

But Tony Gwynn said: “Last place . . . that’s where we belong right now. . . . We basically stink. Is it getting late? It is late. Getting late isn’t even the right word.”

The right word is boring. Lance McCullers (5-6) started and pitched well until the sixth, when he gave up a double to pitcher Scott and then hit second baseman Bill Doran in the head with an 89 m.p.h. fastball. Doran collapsed to the turf, and trainer Dave Labossiere came sprinting out, followed by Manager Hal Lanier.

Doran rolled around for a while, then got up on his knees. Labossiere asked him questions like: “Where are you?” and “What’s your name?” Doran began giggling.

“Why was I laughing?” Doran said. “Well, they were asking me questions like I was a DWI (driving while intoxicated).”

Lanier asked him to come out of the game, but Doran wuldn’t. He ran to first base, the crowd roaring.

So with no score and runners on first and second, the next batter--Davey Lopes--bunted toward third. But the Padres were ready, having called for the rotation play. That meant third baseman Graig Nettles was to field the ball and throw to shortstop Garry Templeton covering third. He did, but he threw wide to Templeton’s left. Scott came sliding into third, and Templeton reached back and made not one, but two tags. And Harvey, the umpire, made not one, but two calls. First he signalled out, but changed his mind and said safe.

The bases were loaded.

Boros came to argue, but it did no good.

“We thought we had the out at third base,” Boros said. “We executed the bunt defense perfectly. It’s a different ballgame if he’s out.”

Denny Walling followed with a fly out to center that fell five feet short of a grand slam, and Scott scored what turned out to be the winning run. Doran took third and then scored on Kevin Bass’ single. Jose Cruz later drove in two runs with a bases-loaded single past Steve Garvey, who couldn’t react quickly enough to field it.

Doran never re-emerged for the top of the seventh; Lanier ordered him to see a doctor.

“He didn’t want to come out,” Labossiere said. “He didn’t want to come out when we ordered him out. I wish all nine were like him.”

He never was taken to a hospital, though, and team officials said he was under observation in the clubhouse. Under observation? When reporters entered the clubhouse after the game, he was lounging at his locker.

With an expected sellout tonight, the Astros will exceed the 1 million mark in attendence, the earliest it’s been done here since 1982.

Sure, part of the reason for the large turnout Friday night was that the Astros gave away free barbecue aprons to all fans. Many of the people here brought “K Cards” to hold up each time Scott--the league leader in strikeouts--made a Padre batter whiff. Nine cards were held up.

Scott has gone seven or more innings in 19 straight games and has given up three or fewer runs in all of those 19 games (two runs or fewer in 17 of those 19). His split-fingered fastball gave Padre hitters splitting headaches. San Diego managed six hits off Scott (12-7), and its biggest scoring chance came when John Kruk hit a two-out triple in the sixth.

But Garvey stranded him there as he flied out to center, and the score remained 0-0.

After the Astros rallied for the four runs, the crowd got rowdy. Garvey bunted for a single in the ninth and a fan yelled: “Garvey, you sissy!”

Scott says it’s great: “It’s early yet, and we still got two months to go, but this city is starting to get excited.”

Padre Notes Eric Show made his first relief appearance Friday night since Sept. 28, 1983. He started the eighth inning, gave up two hits and a run. But he wouldn’t have yielded the run had Marvell Wynne and Garry Templeton not miscommunicated on a bloop fly to left-center. The ball--hit by Glenn Davis--fell in between them, and Davis later scored on Kevin Bass’ single. Show said he feels better, and he’ll probably pitch the second game of a doubleheader in Cincinnati, Aug. 15. . . . Since July 2, the Padres are 12-20 and have scored just 106 runs (an average of 3.3 per game). And in 18 of those 32 games, they’ve scored two runs or fewer. . . . To get hot-hitting John Kruk in the lineup Friday, Manager Steve Boros rested Kevin McReynolds.