At Last! Padres Get First Win

If shortstops can actually pray, with their bodies crouched over and their hands dangling in front of them and 45,000 people watching, then Padres Dickie Thon was praying.

It was 3:58 p.m. Sunday, two out in the bottom of the ninth, runner on second base, San Francisco’s Brett Butler was the tying run at the plate, full count.

“I’m saying, ‘Please hit it to me, please let me make this play,” Thon recalled. “Oh, I wanted that ball.”

An outside pitch. Butler reached for it. He sent it skidding through the thick infield grass. Skidded right at Thon.

“I’m thinking, ‘Just pick it up and get it to first, quick, quick,” Thon said.

He did. First baseman Carmelo Martinez caught it and did a little skip. Manager Larry Bowa ran from the dugout clapping. Pitcher Lance McCullers ran from the mound pumping hands.

A win. So that’s what it looks like.

The Padres defeated the San Francisco Giants, 6-4 Sunday, preserving minds, soothing tempers, and dispelling the increasingly popular notion that they would wake up in September at 0-162.

After a smashing beginning of five straight losses, it was their first victory of 1988. Dating back to last season, it was just their second victory in 17 games. Thanks to the must-be-notoriously-bad Atlanta Braves, it is also first time the Padres have been out of last place alone since Oct. 5, 1986.

“All the writers have been looking back, saying we’re going to start 12-42 again,” Manager Larry Bowa said, smiling and shaking his head. “Tell you right now, no way that’s going to happen.

“When you’re young and you’re struggling, nobody is going to reach over and pick you up, they’re going to kick you. Well, one of these days, we’re going to be kicking back.”

Sunday was a time for kicking out. In this year’s first post-game clubhouse to contain anything that resembled noise, bottles clinked, laughs erupted, and rookie Shawn Abner even did a little dance in his long johns.

“This is like, fun,” Randy Ready exclaimed. “I mean, we’re having fun .”

After having been home for just 2 of the past 53 days--since the beginning of full-squad spring training--the Padres return to San Diego Jack Murphy for Tuesday’s home opener against the Dodgers.

The Padres will play 18 of their next 22 games at home.

“Whoever thought up this schedule should have their head examined,” Bowa said. “Only two teams start with a six-game road trip. Our guys have been away from home nine weeks. It’s a joke.”

Said Tim Flannery, “I just hope I can find my house.”

The difficult search is over. The Padres found that first victory Sunday thanks to six runs in the first five innings, and then near-perfect relief pitching by Mark Davis and Lance McCullers in the last four innings.

They found it with Randy Ready’s two-run homer and two runs contrived by Keith Moreland’s sneaky base-running.

Ultimately, they found it just where they hoped they would, with two out in the bottom of the ninth, with their hardest thrower facing the Giants’ top hitter.

After retiring the first five batters he faced--three on strikeouts--Lance McCullers gave up a bloop double to pinch-hitter Joel Youngblood to bring up tying run Butler. He had already gotten three hits Sunday, and had pestered the Padres this series at a 6-for-16 clip with a homer and a triple.

“Of all the things that have happened to us, a lot entered my mind,” Bowa said.

Out to the mound ran pitching coach Pat Dobson. Turns out, it was just to visit.

“Told me Larry had sent him out there, and that he didn’t really have anything to tell me,” McCullers recalled, laughing. “But then he told me to keep the ball down and away. And I listened.”

He also listened to Flannery. From his position at third base, where he was inserted in the eighth, the veteran Flannery was screaming:

“These guys can’t hit you. You’re the best we’ve got. It’s our day. They can’t touch you.”

Six pitches later, Butler didn’t. For now, call the most important play of the season the grounder to Thon.

“I know I was a little crazy, but all I could think was, the bull stops here,” Flannery said. “Right here, right now.”

It was as if Keith Moreland was saying the same thing. With his baserunning, of all things.

After a first-inning RBI single, he went all the way from first to score on third baseman Kevin Mitchell’s wild throw of Chris Brown’s grounder. The throw went into right field, moving Moreland to third, but then he kept going, and first-baseman Will Clark panicked and threw it wildly over catcher Bob Melvin to allow the run.

In the third inning, after he singled and went to second on a Shawn Abner single, Moreland fooled Clark again. On a Mark Parent single to right, he rounded third and snuck home while Clark was cutting off Candy Maldonado’s throw.

Moreland shrugged. “We had to get a win,” he said. “Any way we could.”

Padre Notes

Shortstop Garry Templeton was rested for a second straight day Sunday with soreness in a recently twisted left knee. Templeton said he would be “fine” for Tuesday’s home opener. . . . Chris Brown started Sunday after being benched for two straight games, but went 1-for-4 with a 30-foot infield single. Larry Bowa hinted that Keith Moreland could be moved there temporarily. That would bench Brown and make room for Carmelo Martinez, who had an RBI double Sunday, to get into the lineup in left. “We need more pop in the lineup,” Bowa said. “We might have to do something.” . . . The Padres will hold an optional 9:30 a.m. workout today at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium in preparation for Tuesday night’s home opener. It is not open to the public . . . Pitcher Dave Leiper will throw batting practice in today’s workout, in anticipation of being activated by the middle of the week. “I hope its by then,” said Leiper, who has been on the disabled list since March 27 with tendinitis in his left elbow.