Tony Gwynn Hits While Raines Sits And Holds Lead

Tony Gwynn is finding it difficult to catch a fellow who is standing still.

With two hits in four at-bats in a 6-3 loss to the Cincinnati Reds Friday night, Gwynn raised his batting average only one point, from .329 to .330. Montreal’s Tim Raines, the leader, sat out and remained at .335.

If Raines continues to sit, Gwynn could beat him by percentage points--.3354 to .3351--if he goes 6 for 8 over the last two games. The Dodgers’ Steve Sax, who slipped from .331 to .330 Friday night, is in much the same situation.

In a race of a different sort, the Padres avoided slipping into last place in the National League West because Atlanta lost, 6-2, to Houston and the Dodgers lost, 8-2, to San Francisco. The Padres remained in fourth place, one-half game ahead of Atlanta and one ahead of the Dodgers.

The Padres played very much like a contender for last place Friday night, contributing four errors to the victory that enabled the Reds to clinch a second-place finish in the NL West.

“I’d like to give them credit for being a good team,” Padre Manager Steve Boros said, “but our inexperience really showed. We had three rookies make throwing errors. Maybe if you eliminate those bad throws, we might have shut them down a little more.”

Ted Power (10-6) struck out eight and gave up 10 hits to earn the victory. Padre starter Ed Wojna (2-2) took the loss.

The Reds scored four runs in the bottom of the fourth to take a 5-3 lead. Eddie Milner hit into a fielder’s choice with the bases loaded to score Dave Parker. Tony Perez followed with a two-run double down the right-field line, scoring Milner and Eric Davis.

The double gave Perez 1,651 career runs batted in, 14th on the all-time RBI list.

Perez moved to third on a throwing error by second baseman Bip Roberts, his second error of the game. Perez scored when catcher Mark Parent threw the ball into center on a steal by Ron Oester.

The Padres had scored the first three runs of the game in the top of the second when Power walked Randy Asadoor and Gwynn and allowed a single to Parent to load the bases. With two outs, John Kruk hit a triple past the outstretched glove of Milner.

“Ted Power pitched us a good ballgame tonight,” Red Manager Pete Rose said. “Other than that triple, which (center fielder) Eddie (Milner) made a good try on, he didn’t give up much.”