Reds Keep the Padres Down, 5-1 : Bowa Finds Fault With the Attitude of His 0-5 Team

The Padres are 0 and 5 and counting, and Larry Bowa, their manager, keeps hearing things. After Saturday’s loss--this one, 5-1, to the Cincinnati Reds--he heard the echo of laughter from outside his office and assumed it was one of his players having fun.

“You hear that? You hear that?” he asked.

Then Bowa explained why he’s not having fun yet as a major league manager. On Friday, he screamed at his players during a meeting and even broke a fungo bat over his knee. And he said that 20 minutes later, he heard some players laughing outside his door.

“Out of a little respect, at least they could have waited until they were out the door,” he said Saturday. “Maybe I’m wrong. . . . But I’d never, ever think about playing music or laughing and carrying on as bad as this team is going now. But, again, maybe I’ve got to re-evaluate my situation. Maybe I’ve got to say, ‘Hey, it’s only a game.’ . . . I’m the one getting killed over it. I’m the one not sleeping at night.”

Bowa expects his team to pout at times like this, just as he used to pout when he was a player. He expects his team to curse at times like this, just as he used to curse. Before Saturday’s game, he went and took solace in a friend--Red Manager Pete Rose. Bowa complained. He wondered why he was so mad at this losing streak and nobody else was. Rose gave him a simple answer: It’s the money. Nowadays, the players take their money and run; Bowa and Rose used to run first and then take the money.

So Bowa says he understands it all now.

“No one can make me believe I’m a loser, and I’m 0 and 5,” he said after the Reds got to Padre starter Eric Show for five runs in the first three innings. “I don’t (care) if I’m 0 and 162. . . . I’m not a loser. And no one will ever change my mind. I’m a winner, and I know I’m a winner.

“But I know that’s not the attitude of the players out there. Some, I’m sure there are some. But there’s a few out there that could (care) less. They collect their paychecks, and that’s the way it goes.”

Actually, there was no goofing around in the Padre clubhouse Saturday. They were soundly thumped, and they knew it. Cincinnati’s Buddy Bell and Bo Diaz had RBI singles in the first, Kal Daniels hit a homer in the second and Diaz hit another homer in the third.

Show, the losing pitcher, said, “I know one thing: I don’t want to go 0 and 10 or we’ll be out of it the rest of the year. . . . We just can’t lose too many more--it’s about that simple--or we won’t be able to catch up. I don’t think we have the type of team that’s capable of doing that.”

Bowa is saying--in so many words--”Get angry about it!”

But they won’t. Of the everyday starters, there are three rookies and two second-year players. They’re too shy to speak up. There’s Tony Gwynn, but he doesn’t want to be the leader. That leaves veterans Steve Garvey and Garry Templeton, and neither is really motivation-oriented.

Garvey is practical.

“I think a lot of us are disappointed,” he said. “But we’re still optimistic. No one is giving in or not putting forth the effort.”

Templeton is practical.

“We’ve got a couple of guys here who really don’t show a lot of emotion,” he said. “I think he might be getting mad at that. I mean, I don’t think there’s any one person here who doesn’t feel bad. . . . What he’d like to see is a sign, a sign from somebody, a showing of frustration. But you can see the frustration on guys’ faces. . . . He should have known from spring training that we don’t have guys that show emotion.

“Listen, it’s a matter of timing. Soon, some guys might really blow up. I might. . . . I’ve gotten mad a few times and thrown helmets, but all that does is get your frustration out. It doesn’t help the team win. We’ve got to do things as a team to win.”

The Reds got all five of their runs with two outs. In the first, for instance, Bell looped his RBI single just over the outstretched glove of Templeton.

In the second, Show got two quick outs and then threw a good outside pitch away from the right-handed-hitting Daniels, but Daniels reached out and poked it over the right-field fence.

In the third, Diaz hit a high pitch for the home run to right. It was 5-0.

The Reds won easily although Eric Davis and Dave Parker, their best two hitters, combined went 0 for 8.

Meanwhile, the Padre rookies--catcher Benito Santiago, second baseman Joey Cora and center fielder Stan Jefferson--were seeing screwball artist Tom Browning for the first time. Bowa thinks all three had never seen a screwball that good, which explains why they combined to go 1 for 9.

Despite that performance, Bowa is wondering if the time hasn’t come to play kids and only kids. He’d love to be able to do what Pete Rose can do--go to owner Marge Schott and say, “I want to get rid of all the guys who aren’t playing the way I want.”

Bowa said, “My bottom line is this: If we are going to struggle--which it looks like we are--why don’t we struggle with kids all the way? One through nine. Why don’t we throw them all out there? Bring up the (Shane) Macks? The (Shawn) Abners? . . . Let ‘em all get their indoctrination in the same year, and when they all come to spring training next year, they’re not rookies.”

Will that happen?

“I don’t think I’m in a position to do that,” Bowa said. “I’m having trouble winning the first game. Can you imagine me going to Jack (McKeon, the general manager), saying, ‘Get everyone out of here. Let’s go with kids’? He’d say, ‘Why don’t you get out of here and we’ll go with another manager.’ ”

So Bowa will have to wait this one out and stay cool. He sat there staring at the Reds bench Saturday when Daniels hit his home run and saw all the high-fives, the enthusiasm. He envied that feeling. His Padres haven’t won since March 27, a spring training game against Milwaukee. That was 13 games ago.

“I saw Daniels’ home run, and they were having a ball,” he said. “I wish we could do that. . . . I haven’t shaken a hand in two days.”

Padre Notes

First baseman Steve Garvey got his first hit of the season Saturday, a ground-ball single up the middle. It broke an 0-for-14 streak. “I knew I’d get a hit again,” he said. . . . The Padres lost six straight games to start the 1974 season, and a loss in today’s game at 11:15 a.m. would tie that record. Ed Whitson will face Cincinnati’s Guy Hoffman. . . . Monday’s home opener against San Francisco has been pushed back to 7:20 p.m. because of a pregame fireworks display. Dennis Conner, the winner of the America’s Cup, will throw out the first ball.