Padres’ Fairy Tale Has Unhappy End as Pirates Win, 6-5

The Padres had a storybook finish spoiled Friday night.

John Kruk, who grew up two hours away in Keyser, W.Va., hit a pinch-hit, game-tying homer with two out in the ninth. He circled the bases and glanced up at a group of 60 hometown folks, and all was a fairy tale.

It took the Pirates two innings to make the Three Rivers Stadium crowd of 13,109 forget it. With two out in the 11th, Johnny Ray hit a bloop double to left, scoring Bobby Bonilla ahead of Stanley Jefferson’s high throw, and the Pirates had won, 6-5.

Against reliever Goose Gossage, Bonilla opened the 11th with a ground single to right. Two line outs later, Ray had one of the softest hits of the night. Jefferson ran carefully, then wildly toward it as the ball took a spin off the artificial turf. Bonilla easily slid under a high, dying throw to the plate.

“It bounced up and I had to reach for it and I had no momentum,” Jefferson said. “I tried to get it there too fast.”

It was neither Jefferson nor Gossage but only the sort of trying-too-hard uncertainty that cost the Padres their fourth straight game and seventh of their last 10 on this 12-game trip.

They blew a 4-3 lead in the seventh when starting pitcher Jimmy Jones tried too hard and walked batter No. 8, shortstop Felix Fermin, who was playing in his first major league game. That started an uprising that turned into a major problem when left-handed reliever Mark Davis came on to face four straight left-handed hitters. Overthrowing, he could not get any of them out. The Pirates exited the inning leading, 5-4, and even when the Padres caught up, they couldn’t take over.

Manager Larry Bowa has to trust that one of his best two pitching prospects can go more than six innings in a start. He has to trust that a left-handed reliever, whose only job is to get out left-handed batters, can do so. And he has little choice but to play a young left fielder who is supposed to be the Padre left fielder for a long time.

And sometimes he has to think that something else is working against him. After all, Pirate Manager Jim Leyland appeared to do everything to lose the game by bringing in right-handed reliever Don Robinson to get right-handed pinch-hitter Bruce Bochy for the last out of the ninth. Leyland obviously forgot that Bowa had Kruk on his bench, and thus Kruk was sent up to become a hero, which he did but didn’t.

“The other guy (Leyland) does everything wrong, and he still wins,” Bowa said.

“And to think,” Kruk said, “last time I was here, I came up in a similar situation and struck out. My family told me if I wasn’t going to do anything, they would stop coming up.”

“I thought maybe he (Jefferson) should have hit the cutoff man (shortstop Luis Salazar),” Bowa said, “but because it was so shallow, maybe he thought he had a shot at it. But he’s the guy we’ve got to find out about. We’ve got to see if he can play here.

“He’s such a mystery. He gets on base, he’s unbelievable. (Jefferson, a rookie, went 0 for 6 to drop his batting average to .216.) He’s got so many tools. Yet . . . last year he played Triple-A, so it’s not like Joey (Cora), who came here only playing Double-A. I just don’t know.”

The Padres have already traded Kevin Mitchell, a key figure in last winter’s trade of Kevin McReynolds to the Mets. Sending down Jefferson, also obtained in the McReynolds’ trade, to the Triple-A team in Las Vegas--still an option at this point--would do the deal further damage.

Speaking of damage, two pitchers did much more than Jefferson Friday night. As has been the case recently, one was a middle reliever. After Jones had opened the seventh by walking Fermin, he induced pinch-hitter Al Pedrique into a bad sacrifice bunt, forcing Fermin at second. At this point, Jones had allowed three runs on six hits in 6 innings.

Time to bring in Davis to face the left-handed hitting top of the Pirates’ order.

“I was all psyched to face (Barry) Bonds and get the double play, but I understood,” said Jones of Bowa’s decision to take him out. “With all those left-handers, I would have done the same thing myself.”

Said Bowa: “I had to do it that way. We’re talking about bringing in a guy whose major league niche is to get out left-handers. You’ve got to go out there with what you’ve got.”

Davis allowed Bonds to hit an RBI double on the first pitch. A couple of pitches later, Andy Van Slyke pulled another hanging curve to right for an RBI single, and the Pirates led, 5-4. Davis was more careful with the next two lefties, Ray and Sid Bream. He walked them both. He was removed from the game without retiring a batter, allowing one run on two hits.

Lance McCullers retired Jim Morrison (popup) and R.J. Reynolds (ground out) with the bases loaded.

“That’s the role (middle reliever against left-handers) they want me in, and that’s what I want to do,” said Davis, the former Giant who has pitched in four games in his first week with the Padres. “It’s just a matter of relaxing. Tonight, I was overthrowing and mechanically not throwing well. I have to go out to the bullpen and make some adjustments. I have to relax and throw the ball.”

Said Bowa: “He’s trying, and I’m sure he didn’t do it on purpose. We just can’t get any consistency down there (bullpen). We can’t get a hot hand.”

A hot manager, now that’s easy. What probably upset Bowa more than anything, more than Davis or Jefferson or ruining Kruk’s reunion, was Jones’ walk that started it all.

“You can hash it how you want,” Bowa said, “but when it comes down to it, that walk to the No. 8 hitter is the ballgame. You cannot walk that guy. I keep waiting for a light to go on (referring to Jones). I go out there and he says he didn’t try to do it, and I believe him, but you can’t keep saying that. You’ve got to do it. Inconsistency is killing him.”

Jones, who played against Fermin last season in the Pacific Coast League, agreed.

“I’ll be having dreams about that walk tonight,” he said. “If it’s Babe Ruth or somebody, maybe it’s different. But he’s just a singles guy. It was a bad, bad mistake, and I don’t know what else to say about it.”

Padre Notes In what undoubtedly will be a continuing war of words, pitcher Eric Show has responded to what Cub Andre Dawson said Thursday regarding Tuesday’s beanball incident. “I am very sorry that Andre Dawson has chosen to believe that I hit him intentionally,” Show said. “I will not continue to defend myself against this witch-hunt mentality. I know the truth--that I did not throw at him--and anybody who continues to believe I did is far more evil than me. I can recall no other time in history when a beaning caused such a stir without giving me the option of innocent until proven guilty. I’ve done everything I feel I can do, in a decent manner, a Christian manner. Apparently, the people in Chicago feel I can gain atonement only via suicide or murder.” All of this was contained in a statement written on local hotel stationery, except once Show stepped in front of local television cameras, he ad-libbed. He added several shots at Chicago Sun-Times columnist Ron Rapoport, who, the day after the beaning, accused Show of deliberately pitching at Dawson’s head. Then Friday, after Dawson’s reply, the columnist wrote, “Show . . . is a mediocre pitcher and a worse liar.” Replied Show: “I don’t appreciate that a lot of this is being created by an amoeba brain in Chicago, a man with cerebral ague and mental vertigo, who wanted to create a riot and put a lot of us in danger.” . . . Dawson has said it would be wise for the Padres not to use Show when the Cubs come to San Diego July 20-22. Incidentally, Dawson is 5 for 38 (.132) lifetime against Show. . . . The Padres, saying they made the decision before Dawson’s statement, will not use Show against the Cubs. Manager Larry Bowa said it has nothing to do with Dawson, but the rotation will change after the All-Star break, with Show moving behind Ed Whitson and Mark Grant. That means he will pitch July 18 against St. Louis, miss the Chicago series entirely, then face Pittsburgh in that series’ first game July 23. Normally, Show would follow Whitson and would pitch the final game against the Cubs July 22. “We’ve talked about it, and it’s not by design,” Bowa said. “They’re just going to miss him.”

In his fourth All-Star Game Tuesday, Tony Gwynn will be involved in a debut competition during Monday’s workout at Oakland Stadium--Hitting for Accuracy. He and several other National League hitters will team against the American League in aiming for certain spots on the diamond. Also that day, Gwynn and Wade Boggs will tape a special segment for NBC’s All-Star night coverage. . . . The Padres’ new player representative, Storm Davis, who replaced traded Dave Dravecky, held his first meeting Friday. Among other things, Davis announced a new Pirate policy of not allowing players to carry beer from the clubhouse. Most clubs have adopted that policy this summer because of liability problems.