Padres Keep Intensity Up, Beat Phillies, 3-1

At 4:15 p.m. Saturday, Padre Manager Larry Bowa convened perhaps the most unusual clubhouse meeting of his brief managerial career.

He didn’t scream. He didn’t scold. He didn’t take all day. In a span of 15 minutes, he simply urged the team, which had lost three straight, not to spend this last month tearing down what had taken three months to build up.

In one of the quieter moments with this club, he talked about intensity.

“Actually, a very positive meeting,” said a player who requested anonymity. “Really, it was a good meeting.”

Said Bowa: “I just told them that in these last two games, we weren’t the same team we had been. I told them I didn’t mind losing if the intensity was high. I told them to keep the volume turned up.”

Five hours after the meeting, rookie pitcher Eric Nolte had thrown his first major league complete game. Pinch-hitter Marvell Wynne had driven in his 9th and 10th RBIs in 19 pinch-hitting appearances, against baseball’s best relief pitcher, no less. And the Padres had defeated the Philadelphia Phillies, 3-1, and made the crowd of 13,479 at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium believe there may be some life left in this team. This morning there are some ears ringing.

“Tonight showed me something,” said Bowa, whose club had played dead since it blew a 5-2 ninth-inning lead to Montreal Wednesday and dropped the next two games as well. “You have a game like that one with Montreal, mature teams will forget about it. Mature teams will learn to turn the page.”

Saturday night, Nolte and Wynne jumped right off that page.

Nolte allowed just four hits, striking out seven, walking four, and working out of jams in every inning but three. One of those easy ones was the ninth, when he retired Mike Schmidt on a full-count fly out, struck out Von Hayes on a 1-and-2 pitch, and struck out Lance Parrish, swinging, with a full count.

Intensity. Parrish twisted his body around, Benito Santiago caught the ball, and the 23-year-old Nolte celebrated in the only way he’s yet learned: He marched off the mound, his glove held high, his free hand punching at the air in front of him. He nearly tackled Santiago with a double high-five. He high-fived Bowa into next Tuesday.

He came to the clubhouse and was so excited, he began talking in acronyms and initials and other deviations of the English language.

“I really didn’t mean to show the Phillies up with that celebration, and I’m sorry if they felt that way,” he said. “But hey, it was my first CG in the bigs. I was pumped. I was stoked. It was a W. I think I high-fived Larry in the face. It was a W. What can I say? What was I supposed to do?”

Then there was Wynne, who pinch-hit for Shane Mack in the seventh inning of a 1-1 tie. Stanley Jefferson was on third after leading off with a walk. Tony Gwynn was on second after his bunt single. John Kruk was on first after an intentional walk.

Steve Bedrosian, who set a major league record with 13 straight saves earlier this season, had just come in the game for starter Bruce Ruffin. It was Bedrosian’s first appearance since Aug. 16 because of a sore shoulder, but he still had a 2.72 ERA with a league-leading 33 saves. And he had just struck out Santiago for the second out.

Intensity. Wynne, who had not officially swung at a ball in three days and has started only three times this month, going 1 for 12, swung at Bedrosian’s first pitch.

Bedrosian being a fastball pitcher, Wynne was guessing fastball. The ball shot into right field and two runs scores.

“I was just looking for something across the plate,” said Wynne, who has a team-leading .316 average (6 for 19) as a pinch-hitter.

Padre Notes

Third baseman Chris Brown, who since joining the Padres July 5 has been nagged with injuries (missed 17 starts in 47 games) and with mumblings that he can’t play with minor injuries, landed back in Manager Larry Bowa’s office Saturday night. He made the mistake of arriving late for a pregame, closed-door team meeting concerning, of all things, intensity, according to players. The meeting began at 4:15 p.m., and Brown didn’t get to the park until 4:30, just as Bowa was winding down a speech about playing hard the rest of the year. According to several players, it was a positive speech about not wasting in the final month what they had built in the past three months. Then Brown walked in. “And then,” said one player, “that’s when Larry got mad.” Brown was summoned into Bowa’s office and, with coach Greg Riddoch also in attendance, they met for nearly 30 minutes. Neither Brown nor Bowa would divulge the details of the meeting. It was especially untimely for Brown because he wasn’t starting Saturday--Luis Salazar took his place--which meant he needed to take batting practice with the reserves at 4:50. Starters hit at 5:10. “I was late, but I wasn’t late,” Brown said. “I didn’t know I wasn’t starting. I had something to do and couldn’t get here earlier. I didn’t know there was a meeting, either. When I walked in, I was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.” The meeting came at a time when Brown was struggling. Said Bowa: “He’s not starting because we’re starting Salazar.” In the last three days, Brown had gone a lackluster 1 for 11, with one infield hit, and had stranded eight runners. Both parties said it was a good meeting. “It really was,” Bowa said. Said Brown: “If I’m in the doghouse, I don’t know about it. They are being fair. They understand me, I understand them. I don’t want to be on different wave lengths with them--like Dave Winfield and the Yankees’ management--because that takes everything out of the game. More and more I’m getting used to Larry. I trust him day in, day out.”

Sign of the Times: Kodak photography contest winner Mark Johnson, who threw out the first ball Saturday night, pulled something out of his back pocket, scuffed the ball and then threw it all the way to the backstop. Johnson is a photographer from United Press International in San Diego.