Padres Aim to Avoid Falling on Their Faces Right Off the Bat

How bad was the Padres’ start last season? Would you believe worse than that of the 1962 New York Mets, the measure by which all baseball futility is judged?

Even those marvelous Mets of Marv Throneberry had a better first 54 games than the 1987 Padres, who lost 42 of 54 games to start the season. The 1962 Mets lost only 38.

True, the Mets went on to finish 40-120, setting a record for the most losses in baseball history, compared with the Padres, who pulled themselves together enough to finish 65-97. But for those first two months of last season, the Padres could say they were as bad a team as baseball had seen in more than 2 1/2 decades.

Though there are no records kept of the worst first two months by a major league team, a check of the 10 worst teams since the expansion era began in 1961 showed that none started as badly as the 1987 Padres. The 1979 Toronto Blue Jays came as close as any to matching the Padres’ futile start, but their 13-41 record after 54 games was still one shy of the Padres’ mark.

Through June 4 of last year, when the Expos completed a three-game sweep of the Padres in Montreal with an 8-5 victory to drop San Diego’s record to 12-42, the Padres were in a category all their own.

They were playing .222 baseball; they were on pace to lose 126 games and win just 36; they were setting themselves up to become national folk heroes able to spend their retirement years making light beer commercials.

“What counts is what you do on the field,” said Padre outfielder Tony Gwynn, who won his second National League batting title last season. “And on the field, we stunk.”

Maybe that is why the Padres are so intent on not repeating those mistakes when the 1988 season begins Tuesday against the Astros in Houston. The Padres approached this spring training with the idea of getting off to an improved start.

Of course, every team has that goal, but this time the Padres say they believe there is reason to expect results. Much of that optimism comes from a maturation of the relationship between the team and Manager Larry Bowa. Both the players and the manager expect more in their second season together.

“We’ve gotten to know him, and he has gotten to know us,” said Carmelo Martinez, who split time between left field and first base last season. “We understand his style, and he understands us better now.”

The first few months of last season were a time of experimentation. Everyone was learning to work under new rules and new ways. The early results were a disaster. It took a few months, a key trade with the San Francisco Giants and some lineup changes to round the Padres into a team that might have found a way to escape a last-place finish for the first time since 1981, had it not lost 10 of its last 11 games.

“Anytime you have a new a manager, with a group of new players, it takes awhile to adjust,” said Tim Flannery, a utility infielder. “But now he knows the majority of the players. He knows what guys he has to yell at and what guys he has to pat on the back. And we as a team know how to deal with Larry.

“We know this is a good ballclub that can play a lot better than it showed last year. We went through some terrible times last year, yet some positive things came out of it.”

Mostly, players said, they learned about dealing with failure unlike any they had experienced in the past. Major league baseball players are the best in the world at what they do. They generally have enjoyed success in the sport since they first pulled on a glove. Nothing in their backgrounds prepared the Padres for the first two months of last season.

“I’d never gone through anything like that in any sport in my life,” said pitcher Andy Hawkins, who lost his first five decisions and missed two months because of a shoulder injury. “It was the worst period of athletics I’d ever been involved in.”

Hawkins said everyone found his own way to deal with problems, but the situation was such that few could hide their frustrations for long.

“At first it was an individual thing, but after a while, you couldn’t help but see it affected the team,” Hawkins said. “For things to go that wrong, for that length of time, it has got to be a combination of things. One time maybe it was the pitching. The next game maybe we gave some team five outs in an inning (because of errors). The next time we can’t score any runs, nobody is hitting the ball or nobody is driving anyone in. It was just one thing after another.”

The only way to deal with troubles was to believe that better times were just ahead, Hawkins said.

“I try to accentuate the positive,” he said. “I thought about winning, winning, winning, only winning. It is too easy to cry on a shoulder, complain and moan about everything. But everyone is going through the same thing, and they don’t need a veteran breaking down and being depressed.”

All of which might be easy to say with a new season about to begin and thoughts of last year’s terrible start a fading memory. But those who experienced those first two months of the 1987 season will never forget the embarrassment and the frustration.

The humiliation became more than many were willing to bear.

“It became really tough to walk away from the field knowing that you were the worst team in baseball,” Flannery said. “Off the field, people would let you know about it. But you can’t lock yourself in the house. You have to go out sometimes.”

Yet even home was hardly a sanctuary, what with the television and home-delivered newspapers.

“It was tough to get up in the morning and look at a paper,” Gwynn said. “People were ripping us. We were the butt of all the jokes in the National League. We were going to lose 130 games and be the worst baseball team in history.

“If you have any pride in yourself at all, you’re going to keep going out there trying to get it right. And we got it right for about a 2 1/2-month period. We got it right better than anyone in the (Western) division. It wasn’t enough, though, because our start buried us. That start overshadowed everything.

“It was tough during that stretch. We kept saying for weeks and weeks and weeks that it is going to turn around sooner or later, that we’d come back and start playing good baseball. But when we were 12-42, it sure didn’t look like we going to turn it around.”

The season started with five straight losses, but the Padres never went into a deep losing streak. Their early-season plunge mostly was formed by a victory followed by several consecutive losses. Their longest losing streak was a seven-game slide in late May. Only twice did they win two games in a row on the way to the 12-42 start.

“Every team struggles, even the great ones,” said Stanley Jefferson, who had gone from the world-champion New York Mets to the last-place Padres in an off-season trade. “But we lost five in a row and got into a rut. Even if you have a good month, it’s tough to overcome that start.

“It is tough to play when you are that far out because you know in the back of your mind that you are in a no-win situation. This year, we plan to come out winning right from the start. I feel we’re going to be a lot better off this year.”

That belief has been developed through a spring training that has given the players reason to think that better times are ahead, despite their won-lost record (11-16). Their optimism is not founded on the record but rather on the way training camp has been conducted.

“The routine changed a lot,” Gwynn said. “Last year we came in unorganized. We tried to be organized, but it just wasn’t there. This year has been organized really well. We came into it with a game plan and we stuck to it. We tried to do exactly what the coaches have told us to do.

“Last year, Larry came in here cussing and screaming, throwing stuff around. He is the head honcho and he can do what he wants, so it doesn’t bother me. But I could see in some of the younger guys that their eyes were bulging out. They didn’t know what he was going to do next. Last year, Larry didn’t know what to expect from us and we didn’t know what to expect from him. Now we all know.”

The results began to show by June. The Padres snapped out of their slow start by winning the first two games of a three-game series in Atlanta. That started a stretch that lasted until Sept. 23, during which they won 52 and lost 45. That stretch of nearly four months is what the players are looking to build on starting Tuesday in Houston.

“As a ballplayer, you have to look at the way we finished up, how we played in the middle and toward the end of last year,” Hawkins said. “We have to look at the finish and forget about where we finished, which was last.

“We have to think about how well we played when we got going and how well we can play. Going into the season, that’s all I’m thinking about.”

HOW BAD WAS IT? The first 54 games of the 1987 Padres vs. starts by baseball’s 10 worst teams since advent of 162-game schedule in 1961:

Team Year 54 games GB Final GB San Diego Padres 1987 12-42 19 65-97 25 New York Mets 1962 16-38 23 40-120 60 1/2 New York Mets 1965 20-34 13 1/2 50-112 47 New York Mets 1963 20-34 11 1/2 51-111 48 Montreal Expos 1969 15-39 23 1/2 52-110 48 San Diego Padres 1969 24-30 8 52-110 41 New York Mets 1964 18-36 14 53-109 40 Toronto Blue Jays 1979 13-41 20 53-109 50 1/2 Oakland A’s 1979 18-36 14 54-108 34 Toronto Blue Jays 1977 23-31 9 54-107 45 1/2 Montreal Expos 1976 20-34 11 1/2 55-107 46