Padres Again Appear to Be Armless, Fall to 0-2 : Hawkins Pounded Early in 5-1 Loss to Knepper and Astros

Two games, two observations:

1) The Padres have enough hitting and defense that, with a pitching staff possessing any sort of manners, they can win.

2) The Padres are winless.

Another arm was bombed, another game was left in fragments Wednesday as the Padres fell, 5-1, to the Houston Astros in front of 19,074 at the Astrodome.

Starter Andy Hawkins, who last week won the last spot in the rotation over Eric Nolte, was hammered for all five runs in just 3 innings. In two games, Padre pitchers have allowed 11 runs in 16 innings.

“We, uh, have to stay optimistic,” Manager Larry Bowa said afterward, tiptoeing around his temper as if it were a loaded gun. He closed his office door for several minutes before he met with the media. When he opened it, the only one sitting there was him.

“It’s too early for me or this team to have a letdown,” he said. “Remember, it’s just two games.”

Just two games? Look how much trouble the Padres have gotten into in just two games: They already are in a losing streak. They already have been swept in a series. They already are two games out of first place.

Game 1 has become Game 2, and like a weed the Padres thought they’d killed, 1987 has crept a little more into 1988.

In Tuesday’s 6-3 opening-night loss, it was reliever Lance McCullers allowing three runs in a third of an inning. Wednesday, Hawkins was finished almost as quickly.

The first six batters he faced all pounded the ball, resulting in two singles, a double and Glenn Davis’ three-run homer, his second in two days. Three innings later, when it looked as if he might get out of trouble, Hawkins allowed two singles and a walk and eventually two more runs.

So frustrated were the Padre bosses that the first visit by anyone to the mound was when Hawkins was pulled.

“What were we going to tell him that he didn’t already know?” Pat Dobson, the pitching coach, said. “We kept telling him in the dugout, ‘Get the ball down, get it down.’ There was nothing else to say.”

Said Bowa: “All we could do was keep reminding him, keep yelling at him between pitches to keep it down. I don’t know what good going to the mound would have done.”

Afterward it appeared that Hawkins, who will start the home opener next Tuesday against the Dodgers, had finally heard. “I just couldn’t keep the darn thing down,” he said.

Using what best can be described as his “anger math,” Bowa talked about how Hawkins’ problems added up. “You don’t win too many when you give up five runs, not in the big leagues,” Bowa said. “That means you have to score six, and most teams will not give up six runs.”

Astro starter Bob Knepper didn’t. Even though the eight starting Padres had a combined .351 lifetime average against him. Even though Knepper was coming off an 8-17 season that made him baseball’s only pitcher thus far to lose 100 games this decade.

With a three-run lead after one inning, and a 5-1 lead after four, even Bob Knepper becomes Cy Young. Or at least Mike Scott.

“He was able to throw us completely off,” said Tony Gwynn, who still had two hits to complement a splendid assist from right field on which he threw out the speedy Billy Hatcher at third. It was one of several diving catches by the so-far-errorless Padres.

After that demoralizing first inning, the Padres managed only five hits. And they had eight strikeouts, giving them 18 in two games.

“Their lead took us right out of the running game, which is our game,” Keith Moreland said.

“We suddenly had to play cautious, and we aren’t good like that,” Gwynn said.

“We’re just not,” Bowa concluded, “a very good come-from-behind team.”

So what does that mean when, counting the end of last season, the Padres have lost 12 of their past 13 games? So what now?

They can’t go back to Yuma. You win only 3 of 12 spring games in some small desert town, let’s see you go right back.

They can’t run home to San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium. There’s this weekend recreational vehicle sale happening.

They could always quit, disband, renounce their membership in the National League. But then companies would stop sending the players free shoes and golf gloves and chewing tobacco, and nobody should have to live like that.

“Nothing to do,” said Moreland, “except duck it, forget it and get on a plane to San Francisco.”

Oh yes, San Francisco. The Padres play there tonight in the Giants’ home opener. The defending National League West champion Giants. In front of 60,000 fogged-up fans.

“A tough task,” admitted Moreland, facing a four-game weekend series with the Giants. “We have set ourselves up with a tough task.”

The Padres sort of did the same thing Wednesday, even before Hawkins had a chance to wreck things. A daring play called by Bowa in the top of the first inning backfired into zero runs when there could have been at least two.

Randy Ready, batting leadoff in place of a benched Stanley Jefferson, started things with a single up the middle. Gwynn followed with a single to right.

The place is air-conditioned, but Knepper was sweating. One of the worst early-inning pitchers in baseball, he allows an average of a run per game in the first.

Up stepped Moreland, the count went to 2 and 1 . . . and Bowa called for a hit-and-run. The runners took off, Moreland couldn’t connect on the pitch, and Ready easily was thrown out trying to take third. One pitch later, Moreland struck out, and the inning was essentially over.

“That was a big boost,” Knepper said. “I was getting worried until they called that play.”

Bowa shook his head. “It was the one (pitch) up and outside Knepper throws all day,” he said. “Keith tried, but he had no chance.”

Out to pitch in the bottom of the inning came Hawkins, who was hit so hard, even his two outs nearly hurt people. One was a shot that needed a diving catch by Shawn Abner in center field. The other was a shot that landed Moreland against the left-field wall.

“I started out high and couldn’t adjust the whole day. I don’t know why,” said Hawkins, whose last victory was June 13, which seems only a bit longer ago than the Padres’ last win.

Padre Notes

The only Padre pitching bright spot was the relief work of Candy Sierra (big-league debut) and Greg Booker. Sierra allowed two hits and no runs in 1 innings, including getting a bases-loaded double-play grounder from Rafael Ramirez. Booker allowed just one hit in two innings . . . According to Bowa, Shawn Abner’s start in Stanley Jefferson’s place was not because Jefferson has had one hit in 35 at-bats going back to last season, or because Jefferson leads the league in consecutive hitless at-bats with runners on base (an amazing 0 for 28). “We just need to get Shawn some at-bats,” Bowa said. “It’s not a platoon thing or anything. We want to break Shawn in against some left-handers and get his feet wet.” . . . Former Astro Dickie Thon was given a 30-second standing ovation when he hit for Sierra in the sixth. On the second pitch from Bob Knepper, he grounded out sharply to Dennis Walling at third base.