Erratic Grant Leaves Padres No Way Out

The wait for pitcher Mark Grant continues.

Where he is, Padre bosses don’t know. When he’ll get here, they can only guess.

And what he’s doing, well . . .

“To tell you the truth, I don’t know,” pitching coach Pat Dobson said Saturday as Grant cost the Padres a game for the third time in three starts, losing, 5-1, in front of 25,659 at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

From his beginning (a leadoff double by Barry Bonds) to his fourth-inning finish, Grant was as unusual as his spiked haircut, allowing four runs on five hits despite spotty good pitching. Combined with his last start, an 8-3 loss to San Francisco April 15, he has allowed seven runs in his past nine innings.

In spring training, Manager Larry Bowa spoke often of his hopes that Jimmy Jones and Grant would be the young nucleus of the staff.

Jones is 2-2 with the league’s 10th-best ERA of 2.45. Grant is 0-3 with a 5.50 ERA.

And Bowa is sounding like a man betrayed.

“To pitch in the big leagues, you have to have your concentration from the first to last out,” Bowa said. “Mark doesn’t do that. He tends to lose his concentration. There’s no doubt about his arm, and there’s got to be a reason he’s not winning, and that’s it.

“Sometimes, to see him . . . it’s like he has no idea.”

Grant was not around the clubhouse afterward to explain himself. But it was like this:

He allowed such things as the Bonds double, which a groundout and flyout later put Grant down, 1-0, before 15 minutes had passed. The timing was no real surprise--he had allowed two-run homers in each of his two previous starts, each time before the game was five batters old.

He also allowed such things as a two-out homer to Junior Ortiz on a 2-and-0 pitch in the second inning when the No. 8 hitter, Al Pedrique (.128), was waiting on deck. It was the fifth homer Grant had allowed in 16 innings, most on the club, even though five other pitchers have thrown more innings.

Grant, 24, would pitch well to some hitters and then suddenly, as if something were gripping his arm, not so well to others. His night was typified, and iced, by a fourth-inning line drive he allowed to Bobby Bonilla.

The ball shot into the gap between left and center field. Padre center fielder Marvell Wynne ran and ran and, with his right arm outstretched, made a fabulous catch in the webbing of his glove.

Plop, crash, bang. The ball dropped out, Wynne crashed into the fence, and Bonilla didn’t use the brakes until he reached third base. Bonilla scored one pitch later to give the Pirates an insurmountable 3-0 lead. Grant’s game was like that: a flyout turned triple.

“I kept telling him between innings to get the ball down,” Dobson said. “But he would not get it down. He makes the mental mistake on Ortiz--the only pitch he hits is a high fastball, and that’s what he gets.

“It’s fleeting; his concentration is fleeting. It’s there one hitter, not there the next hitter. I don’t know what it’s going to take.”

Whatever, this is not the same pitcher who won 5 of 6 decisions late last year during a streak that included two complete games and a two-hitter against Atlanta. This was more like the pitcher who ended the year with a 10-3 loss to the Dodgers, allowing five runs in 3 1/2 innings. Add that game to this year’s four games--he has pitched once in relief--and you have a man on a four-game losing streak with a 6.76 ERA and 23 hits in 21 innings.

Bowa wants the other Grant back and said he would eventually do whatever took to get him.

“We have some options, some things we can do,” Bowa said, meaning, if Grant doesn’t straighten up, he could be in the bullpen or, worse, triple-A Las Vegas. “We aren’t going to make any changes now, in all fairness; he’s only had three starts. But he’s going to have to start concentrating and turn it around.”

There were other waiting games being played by the Padres Saturday, as for the second time in a week they followed a splendid game with a bit of a stinker.

They were not helped by a Pirate defense that shone, with one diving catch by R.J. Reynolds in right and a flying, over-the-shoulder catch by Bonds in left. Meanwhile, the Padre wait for the big base hit continues. Pirate starter Bob Walk, the oldest pitcher on the team at 31, showed his age by working out of jams caused by five--no puns now--walks. The Padres had runners in scoring position in five of Walk’s six innings and didn’t strike out once, but could score nary a run. Keith Moreland alone stranded six on base, four in scoring position.

This particularly hurt once the club was down, 4-0, after four innings of Grant.

“The one noticeable thing about this team is the inability to get back into the game from three and four runs down,” Bowa said. “And the noticeable gap causing that is lack of a home-run hitter. We need a home-run hitter, a guy who can turn it around with one swing. We don’t have that, and you can’t ask guys to swing for home runs if they aren’t capable of it.

“And we aren’t going to get one in a one-for-one trade. You have to be willing to package some prospects if you want to get one.”

Bowa’s not-so-subtle message to the front office aside, the killer inning Saturday was the fourth, at which point the Padres trailed by just 4-0. Three hitters reached base on a walk, a single and a walk . . . and still no score.

With one out, Marvell Wynne walked. Chris Brown followed with a single to right, a shallow single, but Wynne insisted on rounding second and trying to sneak third. Reynolds’ throw to Bonilla had Wynne out by giant steps. Garry Templeton followed with a walk, but pinch-hitter Carmelo Martinez flied out to center to end things.

“There is no way you should go from first to third on that when you are four runs down unless you are 150% sure,” Bowa said of Wynne’s second baserunning mistake in three games.

Finally, Greg Booker’s wait for more of a chance continues. The reliever took over for Grant and pitched in his sixth game. For the sixth time, he allowed no runs. In two innings, he struck out three, giving him 10 strikeouts in 9 innings. But when the Padres, trailing, 4-0, in the sixth, got Templeton on second base with a two-out double, Booker was pulled for pinch-hitter Dickie Thon.

Thon, now 0 for 4 as a pinch-hitter, grounded out to end the inning. Three batters later in the top of the seventh, rookie Randy Milligan of San Diego High took new pitcher Candy Sierra deep for his first career homer to make it 5-0.

The Padres’ lone run was scored in the bottom of the inning, when rookie Roberto Alomar hit his first major league home run, and he was greeted by a standing ovation.

Padre Notes

The Padres’ triple-A franchise in Las Vegas, one of the best-stocked teams in minor league baseball, continues to play like one. The Stars won their eighth consecutive game Friday night, coming back from three-run deficits three times to defeat Edmonton, 11-9. Shane Mack had another base hit to extend his season-long hitting streak to 20 games. Among the stars for the 15-6 Stars are shortstop Mike Brumley (.433), catcher Sandy Alomar Jr. (.393), outfielder Jerald Clark (.361, 15 RBIs) and first baseman Rob Nelson (5 homers, .305 average).