Padres Rest Their Best and Defeat Giants, 11-2

While their two best hitters--Tony Gwynn and John Kruk--were earning splendid splinters on the bench, the Padres amassed 11 hits Saturday and defeated the San Francisco Giants, 11-2.

Last weekend in Atlanta, Brave Manager Chuck Tanner said the Padres had a lot of good hitters. Someone asked him, “Who are they?” And he said: “Gwynn and Kruk . . . Kruk and Gwynn . . . Gwynn and Kruk.”

But Saturday, Gwynn and Kruk were yuk-yukking it in the dugout, because Randy Ready, Carmelo Martinez and Shane Mack proved that on any given day, anyone can beat the Giants.

Ready scored four runs, Martinez had two doubles and three RBIs and Mack hit his first big league home run.

Today, the Padres will try to win three straight for the first time this season, and Kruk (right knee injury) and Gwynn (left hamstring injury) will again be witnesses. Clearly, the Giants, who scored 25 runs in three games against Cincinnati last week, have taken the last-place Padres for granted, although their manager, Roger Craig, begged them not to in a team meeting before Thursday’s game.

“After playing great in Cincinnati, you come home to play these guys and you figure you can gain some ground,” a disappointed Craig said Saturday. “It just proves anyone can beat you.”

And notice something funny about Saturday’s final score? That’s right, 11-2 was the same lead the Padres held over the Braves last Sunday in Atlanta, and they still managed to lose, 13-12. Saturday, Manager Larry Bowa took no chances. With the score 8-2 after five innings, Bowa yanked starter Andy Hawkins (3-7).

Bowa inserted reliever Craig Lefferts in the top of the sixth, the same Craig Lefferts who had given up six runs that day in Atlanta. This time, though, Lefferts shut out the Giants for four innings to earn his second save.

“Last time, I didn’t go after them,” Lefferts said.

Bowa used his Chihuahua lineup Saturday, players that are always nipping at your heels. Combined, the nine players had hit only 15 homers and had 95 RBIs this season.

“That isn’t very much, is it?” Bowa said.

But Ready, who started in left field, tied a club record with his four runs scored.

“I’m in the books?” Ready asked. “All right!”

On this 12-game trip, Ready is 20 for 45 (.444), and he has played three positions (third base, second base, left field). His buddy Tim Flannery marvels at this, because Ready’s wife is in a Bakersfield hospital, and he is trying to manage his baseball career along with three kids under age 3. Ready’s wife has brain damage, the result of going into a coma after a heart attack last June.

“With the stress he’s playing under, I don’t know how he does it,” Flannery said of Ready.

First baseman Martinez was glad just to be on the field. Back when this trip began, he was benched for being, in Bowa’s words, lazy. One night in Montreal, he didn’t seem to be trying during batting practice, and Bowa asked him if he was having personal problems.

Martinez said no. Bowa benched him.

But in only his first start in six days and fourth in 12 games on this trip, Martinez ripped RBI doubles in the first and sixth innings. Bowa said afterward that he has noticed an attitude change in Martinez.

But Martinez said: “I haven’t changed, man. I’m the same person. No way a man can judge me in one day. Bowa did (that night in Montreal). It’s not fair. But that’s over with. I always work hard. I run, take grounders, take fly balls. I always bust my (rear end). Because when they throw me out there, I don’t want to be out of shape. I want to be ready.

“He (Bowa) told me last night I’d be playing today. But I didn’t think about it. It was like I was an everyday player.”

Center fielder Mack has started every day since being called up from Las Vegas on May 24, but he has rarely been comfortable at the plate. First of all, he said the pitchers are so fast in the big leagues that he has had to shorten his swing. But the home run he hit off loser Atlee Hammaker (3-3) Saturday was about 380 feet to left field.

Some lucky fan made the catch in the Candlestick Park bleachers, but members of the Padres’ bullpen traded a normal ball for Mack’s home run ball. After all, you only hit your first big league homer once.

Mack, though, was hardly smiling. He’s one of these guys who rations words.

So Gwynn spoke for Mack Saturday. “When you first come up to the big leagues, you shut your mouth and work hard every day. That’s the old-school approach. And that’s what I did, too.”

Mack’s homer came with the bases empty, but he contributed a two-run single in the fifth to put the Padres ahead, 8-1.

With another victory Sunday, the Padres will have done the unthinkable--finished this trip with a 7-6 record.

“I’m sure when people look at the box score, they’ll say, ‘Boy, Atlee (Hammaker) must not have had good stuff,’ ” Gwynn said. “That’s what we always hear with our record (17-46). People just expect us to roll over. Well, we won’t roll over for anybody. I don’t want my name in the record books as the worst ever.”

Padre Notes Manager Larry Bowa said the Padres likely would place outfielder Marvell Wynne (back injury) on the disabled list today. Outfielder Stan Jefferson will take his place. . . . Bowa didn’t ask right fielder Tony Gwynn, who has a sore hamstring, to skip Saturday’s game; he ordered him to. “I didn’t rest it,” Gwynn said. “They told me to rest it. I wanted to play, but I sat on the bench, spitting on people’s shoes. I had a blast.” Bowa said he didn’t rest first baseman John Kruk just because Kruk was 0 for his last 17 with nine strikeouts. He said Kruk had a legitimate knee injury. Kruk agreed it was the sore knee that kept him from playing, not the slump. “Shoot, I don’t need no days off,” Kruk said. “I’m 25 years old. Or 26. Something like that.” For the record, he’s 26. . . . Add Kruk: He went up to Giant Manager Roger Craig, who teaches the split-fingered fastball to all of his pitchers, and asked: “Does your pitching machine throw split-fingers, too?” . . . Luis Salazar started in right field for Gwynn and now has played six positions this year: third base, shortstop, pitcher, left field, center field and right field. “I’d like to (play them all),” said Salazar, who says he has played catcher in the minor leagues. . . . The Giants, who fell into second place after Saturday’s game, have a better record on the road (20-14) than they do at home (13-15).