Cardinals Give One to the Padres, 5-2

There was no mail on Larry Bowa’s desk when he arrived at Busch Stadium Tuesday, and it disappointed him. He kept saying: “Where the heck is it? Anybody seen it? Where the heck is it?”

He had been waiting for a scouting report on the St. Louis Cardinals, and it wasn’t there. He thinks it got lost in the mail. So he held a team meeting anyway, and asked questions such as: “Anybody know anything about Tim Conroy? Speak up.”

But the Padres hardly looked confused during their 5-2 victory over the Cardinals. In a role reversal, the Padres looked like the Cardinals and the Cardinals looked like the Padres, which explains the San Diego victory.

The Cardinals came into Tuesday’s game having won 5 of 6 from the New York Mets and were in first place in the National League East; the Padres had won five games all year.

But this was a kooky night. First baseman Steve Garvey--whose 1987 RBI total (three) had come on a home run in the first week of the season--drove in one run in the first inning and two more in the fifth.

And if you thought that was kooky, we give you Jack Clark’s evening. In perhaps the biggest play of the night, he committed a fielding error and throwing error on one play, enabling Padre second baseman Joey Cora to score from first base in the fifth inning.

Clark also barely missed hitting two home runs--one of which would have tied the score at 5-5 in the eighth. Both balls were caught on the warning track.

There was more. Padre starter Ed Whitson--who went six innings and earned his third victory--hit Cardinal speedster Vince Coleman in the leg on his first pitch. Coleman walked down to first and began taking very big leads off the base. Whitson threw over once, twice and then picked him off on his third throw.

In the third inning, Coleman was on first base again (after a walk) when Ozzie Smith (batting .167) lifted a ball down the line in shallow left. Coleman would have scored from first, but the ball landed an inch or two foul.

Smith then bounced into a double play.

“Biggest play of the night, as far as I’m concerned,” Whitson said.

Clark’s double error may have been a bigger play. It happened in the fifth inning, when the Padres were leading, 2-0, against Cardinal starter Conroy. With one out, Cora had singled to right and was taking a big lead off first. Conroy, a left-hander, made a good pickoff throw to Clark, and Cora said later he knew he was out.

But Clark never caught the ball.

“I put the tag on too soon,” he said. He missed the ball.

So Cora rounded second as Clark retrieved the ball. Clark threw toward third. Third baseman Terry Pendleton thought Smith, the shortstop, was going to catch it, and Smith figured Pendleton would handle it.

The ball rolled between them and into the Padre bullpen.

Cora scored.

“I bet that play is on ‘This Week In Baseball,’ ” Cora said. “It’ll be on somebody’s video. I want to see it on TV. That was fun.”

Pendleton said: “As bad as we played tonight, we wouldn’t have beaten them anyway.”

After Clark’s mistakes, Conroy came undone. He walked third baseman Randy Ready and gave up a bloop double to Tony Gwynn. Then Cardinal Manager Whitey Herzog had Carmelo Martinez walked intentionally, loading the bases, to face Garvey. Right-hander Ray Soff was summoned from the bullpen.

Garvey lined a single to left, scoring Ready and Gwynn. There had been a relay to the plate to try to get Gwynn, but the ball hit Ready in the shin. This was the Cardinals’ fourth error of the night.

Clark tried to atone. The Cardinals had scored two runs off Whitson in the seventh, and Clark stepped up with two men on in the eighth against reliever Lance McCullers. He hit one deep to right, but Gwynn caught it near the wall. McCullers then retired the next four batters and earned his second save.

Garvey--batting .182 before Tuesday’s game--was all smiles afterward. He said he had made a minor adjustment in his swing, and that did the trick.

“I’d been trying to uppercut the ball,” he said. “Now, I’m swinging down on it. And now, I’m getting good backspin on the ball. I’m hitting it hard. That’s something I hadn’t been doing at the start of the season.”

Bowa says he doesn’t care about the scouting report anymore.

Padre Notes The Padres have recalled pitcher Jimmy Jones, and have sent reliever Tom Gorman to Triple-A Las Vegas. Gorman didn’t really have to sign the release papers, because he had a sore pitching arm, but Manager Larry Bowa told him if he didn’t sign by 1 p.m. Tuesday, he’d have to clear waivers, which would take a week. Gorman signed.