Padres Left on Short End of Long Ball

So far this summer, the Padres have been forced to play a different game from other teams, on a different-sized field, with apparently different rules, and that’s what gets to Padre Manager Larry Bowa.

Tuesday night, the Padres lost, 4-3, to the New York Mets, and were swept in a three-game home series for the first time since May 25-27 against Philadelphia. Here’s why.

The Mets need only one swing to score a run. The Padres need three or four swings.

The Mets have six players who can come to the plate and win a game. The Padres have two.

The Mets seem to play with outfield fences no more than 200 feet away. The Padres play with fences they can’t even see.

The Mets won Wednesday with two two-run homers, including the game-winner by Howard Johnson in the seventh. They swept this series by using a homer to win each game. They have outhomered the Padres, 16-6, in their season series, which was won, 8-4, by the Mets. Overall this season, the Mets have 160 homers (third in the league) to the Padres’ 86 (11th).

The Padres’ leading home-run hitter, John Kruk, has 18. Four Mets have more than that. And it’s not just the Mets. It’s everybody. The Padres have been victimized by 24 game-winning homers. And Bowa, who knows his players are doing all they can, is tired of it.

Wednesday, the manager made his strongest plea thus far for a power hitter. Any power hitter. Now.

“Sometimes we are just out-talented, that’s all,” a frustrated Bowa said. “It’s difficult playing with teams like the Mets, where anybody from No. 2 to 7 in their lineup can hit one out. Two swings, four runs, and that’s it.

“We can’t ask guys to hit homers who aren’t capable of hitting them. You go with what you got, there’s nothing you can do. But in situations like these, we just can’t compete.”

More than for himself or his team, Bowa hurt for starter Ed Whitson, who pitched his best game in more than a month. It was a game so endearing to the 17,715 at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium that many gave Whitson a standing ovation when he was knocked out with one out in the ninth.

Whitson allowed nine hits, but only as many as two an inning twice. He struck out 10, tying a career high. He did things like getting Kevin McReynolds (.282, 23 homers, 77 RBIs) to end four innings--three times with runners on base, once on a double play.

But he allowed a two-run homer to Keith Hernandez (his 15th) in the third. And a two-run homer to Johnson (his 34th) in the seventh that overcame the Padres’ 3-2 lead. A lead, incidentally, fashioned with three singles, three doubles and a sacrifice fly.

“Whitson makes two mistakes, and they are two runs,” Bowa said. “The other guy (Dwight Gooden) makes mistakes and doesn’t get burned. That’s the difference.”

Didn’t Whitson know it.

“Blame me for the loss, I threw the balls, but I cannot throw any better than I did tonight,” he said. “The real disappointing part is that they got eight guys who can take you deep, and for us, we just scrap and scrape. We’ve got no Keith Hernandez, no Gary Carter, no Howard Johnson. You have to almost pitch perfect, and pitchers are human, too.”

Particularly gainst Johnson, who has been accused of using a bat that spends the off-season as a life preserver.

“I’ve was hitting the same before and after all the controversy,” Johnson said. “I just think I’m doing it because I’m a better hitter. I’m maturing, I’m a smarter hitter, and I’m playing every day.”

The reason for the fuss is that the 26-year-old Johnson’s 34 homers gives him more homers than in his previous three major league seasons combined (33).

Padre Notes

Third baseman Chris Brown was scratched from the starting lineup just before Wednesday’s game after he fouled a batting practice pitch off his right knee. He was helped off the field and is listed as day-to-day. Brown has missed 16 of 52 possible starts since he joined the Padres July 5. . . . The newest Padre arrived in San Diego Tuesday at 2 p.m., carrying an Oakland A’s duffel bag and wearing a brand new look of shock. Excuse pitcher Dave Leiper, 25, but this is the first time he’s been traded, and his A’s were in the middle of a pennant race. Right now nothing is a great deal of fun. “I had no idea it would be me,” said Leiper, who joins the Padres as one of two players to be named in Sunday’s deal that sent Storm Davis to Oakland. “We were all wondering in the clubhouse who it would be,” Leiper said, “and we all figured it would be Tony Phillips. I was told five minutes before Monday’s game (in New York) that I was one of the guys. I was shocked. I’m still shocked.” Padre Manager Larry Bowa took Leiper aside Tuesday night and assured him that he understood. “I told him that I knew this must be the shock of his life,” Bowa said. “I told him that we wanted him here, and that we had come a long way this season. I told him he would work his way in here fine.” Leiper may be feeling awkward for other reasons. Not only is he changing teams and leagues, but he is doing it while working out of a slump. In his first 38 games this season he was 2-0 with one save and a 2.76 ERA. But then in Game 39, on Aug. 17 in Anaheim, after Reggie Jackson had put the A’s ahead of the Angels, 4-2, on a dramatic seventh-inning homer in probably Jackson’s final game there, Leiper ruined it. He came into the game in the seventh with runners on first and second and one out. He walked George Hendrick to load the bases, then Devon White hit a grand slam. Six appearances later, on Sunday in Toronto, Leiper ended his Oakland stay on a bad note when he came on in the seventh and, after getting two out, allowed a single, a walk, and a three-run homer to rookie second baseman Nelson Liriano, the kid’s first homer and RBIs in the big leagues. Leiper ended up 2-1 with a 3.78 ERA. At least here, where Bowa waited all of seven innings to put him in Tuesday, he won’t have time to think about any of that. In his first appearance, he allowed the Mets one run on one hit in two innings.

Who is the Padres’ team most valuable player this season? Bowa cast his vote in a matter of seconds Wednesday for Tony Gwynn. “He’s done everything--played hurt, played all the time--everything,” said Bowa, who noted that Gwynn, catcher Benito Santiago, and first baseman John Kruk are the only three Padres who could fall on their faces next spring and still be in the lineup on opening day, 1988. “Other than that, nobody’s job is safe,” said Bowa, who said that included the entire pitching rotation. “We aren’t playing Christmas next year. We aren’t giving anything away. Everybody has to earn it. If we started the season tomorrow, I would have no pitching rotation. What guys do in September, that will give them the inside track. There are no Tony Gwynns in the starting rotation.”

Gwynn hit .402 in August but was not voted his team’s player of the month. Santiago, who hit .330 with 6 homers and 25 RBIs, was the winner of the award by virtue of a 10-2 vote by the media. Gwynn had won the award twice already this season. . . . At 9:40 a.m. Tuesday, Tim Flannery’s wife, Donna, gave birth to their second child and first girl, Virginia Lynn, who weighed 7-pounds 10-ounces. Flannery jokingly said he and Donna had decided to name the child after the first Met to get a hit in Monday’s game, but backed off when, in the third inning, it was Wally Backman (homer). “We just didn’t have Wally in mind,” said Flannery with a laugh. One day, his daughter undoubtedly will be grateful.