Padre Notebook : Pitching Situation Clearer but Not Necessarily Better

Maybe it’s because there’s just a week left in spring training, and the temperature here was one sweat drop shy of 100, and Manager Larry Bowa’s patience was about as thin as the bathing suits in the bleachers.

But you know all those questions left about the 1988 Padre pitching staff? Who will make the team as the 10th guy, who will be in the starting rotation, all of that?

In just nine innings Saturday, they were essentially answered. What has been debated for five weeks reached resolution in three hours. If it was not their most important or inspirational game of the spring, the Padres’ 6-3 loss to the San Francisco Giants certainly was their most decisive.

Candy Sierra rose. Dave Leiper and Eric Nolte fell.

And, as an aside, Bowa decided to throw a scare into some other pitchers who haven’t been doing so well (A preview: “Our bullpen is in a shambles.”)

To wit:

- Sierra probably won the job as the club’s 10th pitcher over Leiper in the club’s most direct mano-a-mano this spring.

Sierra, who turns 21 today, entered the game with the bases loaded and one out in the fifth. He got Candy Maldonado to hit a double-play grounder, then followed with a scoreless sixth.

Enter Leiper in the seventh. He went 3 and 0 to leadoff batter Brett Butler, then threw a strike, then threw up the resin bag in pained disgust. His elbow was hurting with a form of tendinitis. He could not continue.

Mark it Sierra headed for opening day in Houston, Leiper headed for the disabled list.

“Tell you what,” Leiper said softly. “It’s not a good time to have this happen.”

Sierra, a former double-A star who has allowed just two runs in 17 innings (1.05 ERA), said little.

“I’ll just wait and see what happens,” he said. “I can’t be nervous, or I’ll pitch bad.”

Why would the Padres keep Sierra shortly after ridding themselves of 20-year-old second baseman Roberto Alomar because of youth?

“With a pitcher, it’s completely different,” said Chub Feeney, the club president. “We can sit Sierra in the bullpen and gradually work him in. Less pressure on him than a starting second baseman.”

- Starting pitcher Eric Nolte probably threw his way out of the starting rotation and into the bullpen, meaning that Andy Hawkins and Mark Grant would be the fourth and fifth starters.

In 4 innings, Nolte acted as if he didn’t understand the concept of “home plate.” He walked 30% of the batters he faced. Six in all.

He walked in one run and walked the bases loaded twice. His spring ERA is eternally grateful for two double-play grounders.

Said Nolte: “I’ve dug my own grave, haven’t I?”

Said Bowa: “Nolte had better get consistent in his next start, or there is an alternative other than the bullpen. He is still young (23). There is still an option left for him.”

Translation: Nolte, who has walked 15 batters in 23 innings, even could fall from the bullpen to the minor leagues.

Afterward, Bowa, who watched his team fall to 9-14, praised Sierra, wondered about Nolte, worried about Leiper. Then he delivered a strong statement about two pitchers who actually made this team last winter.

“Our bullpen is in a shambles,” he said after stoppers Lance McCullers (righty) and Mark Davis (lefty) combined to allow the Giants three runs on five hits in the game’s last three innings. “It’s time for guys like Davis and McCullers to come to the forefront. We were counting on them. I thought they would be our strong suit. I thought I knew that.

“Now I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

In 10 spring appearances, Davis has a 5.03 ERA, with 23 hits in 14 innings.

McCullers’ numbers aren’t nearly so bad. In eight appearances, he has a 3.87 ERA, with seven hits in 11 innings.

“Hey,” protested McCullers, “what is there to worry about? Right now, I just want to get in shape and get ready for the season.

“Hey, it’s still spring training.”

Responded Bowa: “Sierra and (Greg) Booker are the only guys down there I can count on right now. I’m giving other guys every opportunity to take charge. If they don’t, we might have to change a few roles.

“It makes me very uneasy, very scared.”

Another day, another standing ovation for Tony Gwynn, who increased his playing time from five to six innings and kept looking better. Against the Giants’ Rick Reuschel, he went 2 for 3 and made another great throw from the field.

“The doctors told me to keep going until I experience pain, so that’s what I’ll do,” said Gwynn, who had finger surgery March 11. “It was good to bat against a guy like Reuschel and see a few wrinkles on the ball, some different kinds of pitches.”

Gwynn said he hopes to increase his playing time by one inning a day, meaning that his first nine-inning game would be Tuesday in Palm Springs against the Angels.

“I’m going to see if I can be the DH there, though, so I can give my finger a little rest from throwing,” Gwynn said.

Padre Notes

The Padres hope you won’t have to mark the day down on your calendar, but on Saturday, for the first time this season, third baseman Chris Brown left a game. He was hit by a pitch from Rick Reuschel, who doesn’t throw hard enough to break glass but who plunked Brown hard enough to raise a huge knot at a spot just above the left elbow. An inning later, his arm stiffened, and he was removed for Tim Flannery. “I’ll be fine, sooner or later,” Brown said. “My arm got stiff, but it should be OK.” . . . This Thursday at 7 p.m., ESPN will televise Gwynn competing with at least 19 other major leaguers in the third annual AT&T; Baseball Challenge benefiting the Special Olympics. Gwynn, who won the competition in 1986, competes in throwing, bunting, fielding, running and home-run hitting. Don’t worry about his finger; the show was taped in October. . . . Determined to Go There, One Way or the Other Dept: Although he won’t be going to San Diego as one of the Padres, second baseman Roberto Alomar hastily drove there Saturday to spend the 72-hour grace period before he must report to triple-A Las Vegas. Amid controversy and tears, the top prospect was cut from the team Friday.