Padres Get Wake-Up Call, Split : After Losing Opener, 2-0, San Diego Bounces Reds, 15-8

It was only 14 minutes. But sometimes 14 minutes in the dark is like 14 hours anywhere else, and between doubleheader games at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium Friday night, something happened.

The Padres, after collecting four hits and a case of the shrugs in a 2-0 twilight loss to the Cincinnati Reds, came back in the second game with that many hits in the third inning alone and won, 15-8.

The first game featured frustration by the regular Padre starters. The second game, played by several Padre reserves, was more like a party.

By the fourth inning, backup center fielder Shane Mack had homered, doubled, and collected five RBIs. Backup infielder Luis Salazar had singled, doubled and knocked in a run. Platoon infielder Randy Ready had singled twice and knocked in two runs.

Lacking obvious reasons for the turnaround, one bit of detective work might lead to the stadium lights. For some reason, all the lights were turned off between games for a firework display. It was as if someone forgot that all those lights just don’t just come back on with a click.

Sure enough, shortly before the scheduled 8:10 p.m. start of the second game, Padre Manager Larry Bowa was taken aside by an operations official and told that the game would be delayed 14 minutes because the lights, unlike both team’s players, had yet to warm up.

Bowa, who was quietly angry about the first loss, appeared to take the delay calmly.

When the lights reached full power, the Reds shook starter Jimmy Jones with three runs on Nick Esasky’s home run in the second. But then Mack homered in the bottom of the inning, and nine runs in the next two innings began a rout in front of a crowd of 33,773 at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

In the second game, the Padres could only play for a doubleheader split--not a sweep, but these days they are trying to prove that their recent seven-game winning streak, which came mainly against one sub-.500 NL West division team, wasn’t just a fluke of the schedule.

Friday marked the first two of 21 straight games against the top five teams in the National League (the Reds, Philadelphia, New York, Montreal, St. Louis). At the end of this stretch, the Padres begin a 22-game stretch that features 17 road games.

In the first game, playing a tougher opponent, the West leaders, the Padres were stifled by Cincinnati pitchers Ted Power and John Franco and their own starter, Eric Show, who in the first four innings walked five batters and hit one other.

The Reds scored two in the fourth, on Kal Daniels’ slicing double down the left-field line after Buddy Bell singled and Eric Davis walked. The Padres were lucky they didn’t score more. The Reds had left eight runners on base in the previous three innings. But the two runs would be enough.

“Eric walked a lot of guys (eight, one intentionally), and it was just a matter of time before they would get to us,” Bowa said. “He was like a time bomb out there.”

The first-game offense was not.

There were more beach balls than base hits.

“It was one of those games where we had a chance to win it,” said Show, whose record dropped to 6-14. “And just didn’t win it. “There was three things I wanted to do. Keep us in the game--I did that. Keep the ball in the park--I did that. And don’t walk anybody. The last one, I didn’t do.”

With one of the Padres’ biggest crowds arriving in time for the 5:05 opener, the fans were in a party mood early, and it continued between games when the Padres management announced an appearance by the Beach Boys to mark the season finale Oct. 4 here against the Dodgers.

The Padre offense, despite entering the first game hitting .289 in its last 16 contests, never caught on. Overall, they started even with the Reds at .263 for a fifth-place tie in the league, yet in nine innings against Power and Franco, they hit just .129 (4-for-31).

While most will remember the way it ended--with Franco striking out two of the last four Padre hitters, including Garry Templeton to end the game with runners on first and second--there were other hard spots.

With one out in the seventh, John Kruk put a ball off the top of the left-field wall for a double. But Benito Santiago grounded out and Chris Brown’s foul ball was caught on the edge of the Padres dugout by a sliding Nick Esasky.

Bowa protested to first base umpire Gerry Davis--”I thought he was on the (out of play) line, which would have been no catch,” said Bowa. “(Davis) said he was fine.”

Then in the eighth, with one out, Tim Flannery walked and pinch-hitter Randy Ready by hit by a Power fastball. But Stanley Jefferson flied out and Tony Gwynn’s grounder ended that chance.

“He threw a heck of a game,” said Bowa of Power (9-7), who struck out six and walked two in eight three-hit innings.