Bunt, Not Another Loss, Surprises Padres : Two-Strike Suicide Squeeze by Law in 10th Gives Cubs a 1-0 Victory

At first glance, this latest in a long line of Padre losses happened because of your basic surprise, daring-as-all-get-out play.

In the bottom of the 10th inning Wednesday, with one out, the bases loaded and two strikes on Chicago’s Vance Law, the guy actually tried a suicide squeeze bunt. It actually worked. Mark Grace scored from third and the Cubs won, 1-0.

That’s at first glance.

At second glance, well, at least one Padre has taken about 1,000 glances at this and can no longer bear to look.

“That bunt wasn’t the play of the game,” first baseman John Kruk said. “The play of the game is, we can’t score. We just can’t score.

“Right now, we stink. We stink. I ain’t gonna lie. I ain’t gonna beat around the bush. We stink. Right now, every damn one of us stinks.”

Kruk will get no argument from the statistics or standings or anybody who has watched the team during any of the 11 losses the Padres have suffered in their last 13 games. Suicide squeeze? For the Padres, that’s another name for a batting grip.

A reasonable person might think after this day at Wrigley Field, that it can get no worse for the Padres than this:

* Against 22-year-old Cub pitcher Greg Maddux, they went down in order in each of the last six innings. The final 20 Padre batters were retired.

* Of those 20 outs, only two balls left the infield. At one point, from the fourth to the ninth innings, 17 straight batters failed to get the ball out of the infield. Counting the Padres’ three hits, only six balls left the infield the entire game.

“You look at some of these things and you do a double take,” Manager Larry Bowa said. “You do a double take 10 times. Since I’ve been able to comprehend baseball, I’ve never seen numbers like this. It’s a joke.”

More lack-of-punch lines:

* The Padres have scored 76 runs in 31 games, or 2.5 a game, or at least 15 runs fewer than any other team in baseball. The New York Yankees have scored nearly three times as often: 209 runs in 33 games.

This season’s offense is even worse than--watch your heart--last season’s offense. Thirty-three runs worse. And at this time last season, the Padres had won only seven games, or three fewer than they have this season.

* The Padres have scored one run or fewer 12 times and have scored more than three runs only seven times all season. In the last 27 innings, they have scored twice.

* The Padres are hitting .223., and they have hit .172 in their last six games. Their leading hitter is pitcher Eric Show (.364). Pitcher Andy Hawkins has only two fewer runs batted in than Carmelo Martinez, Garry Templeton and Shawn Abner.

We know, we know. Enough already.

“It gets boring,” Bowa said. “You don’t know what else to say. After all, these are supposed to be big league players.”

With every loss, Bowa loses a little more color, a little more fire. He doesn’t yell, rarely curses, and after Wednesday’s game didn’t even eat.

Bowa was asked whether he thought the Padre management was blaming him for the slump.

“If they want to blame me, I’ll take the heat,” Bowa said. “But every smart baseball man knows what’s happening out there.

“I’m being patient, real patient. I’ve been told to develop kids, and I was willing to do that. And I’ve been doing that. I’m willing to stick with the kids if it means losing 50 in a row. They have to realize, if we’re going to rebuild, we can’t do it in one year.”

Without further prompting, Bowa read down Wednesday’s lineup as if pleading his case.

“Look at it: Roberto Alomar is a kid, Randy Ready is a utility player, Kruk and Benito Santiago are in their second full year, Shawn Abner and Shane Mack haven’t even played full years,” he said. “We’ve got just two veterans out there, Keith Moreland and Tony Gwynn. You’ve got to be realistic.”

The realism Wednesday was clear: The Cubs won with a big league play that only certain kinds of teams can pull. The Padres apparently are not one of those teams.

With Lance McCullers pitching in the bottom of the 10th, after the Padres wasted 7 innings of brilliant pitching by Mark Grant, Ryne Sandberg led off with a fly to deep left field. Moreland, a former Cub, raced back to a familiar ivy wall, leaped, stretched his glove high above his head and came down with zilch. The ball hit the wall slightly just above the glove and bounced into shallow left field. By the time Moreland chased it down, Sandberg was on third.

“The wind is tricky here. The ball does weird things,” Moreland said. “I jumped in the spot where I thought the ball would be. It was my best shot. But the ball wasn’t there. I don’t know what to tell you.”

Bowa didn’t have to be told what to do next. He ordered McCullers to intentionally walk Grace and Andre Dawson.

In came left-handed-pitching Mark Davis. Up stepped left-handed-hitting Rafael Palmeiro. Davis fooled Palmeiro on a curve and wound up with a grounder to first baseman Kruk, who threw home for one out.

Up stepped Law, one of the team’s best bunters and a seven-year veteran who understands this sort of thing. On Davis’ second pitch, Law squared to bunt. The ball was in the dirt and Law scooped his bat down for it and, although the ball bounced away from catcher Santiago, apparently never touching the bat, it was ruled a foul by home plate umpire John Kibler.

Thus renewed, Davis worked the count on Law to 2 and 2, and prepared to throw a strike that Law might hit on the ground into a double play.

“At that point I thought, no way they would squeeze,” Davis said. “Not with two strikes.”

No way were they doing anything but. Law squared and plopped the ball down the first-base line. A stunned Kruk could only scoop it and throw it home with his glove, but by then, Grace had scored.

“I wasn’t surprised,” Law said. “But then this spring, (Manager) Don Zimmer told us never to be surprised with anything he does.”

Bowa, who was surprised by the bunt, wasn’t surprised that it worked.

“That’s what happens when you have people who can execute,” Bowa said.

Two innings earlier, also with Law at bat, the Padres had gotten out of nearly as bad a jam. With the bases loaded, thanks in part to right fielder Mack losing Dawson’s fly ball in the sun for a double, McCullers retired Law on a double-play grounder to shortstop Templeton.

But it doesn’t seem to matter anymore. No matter how well the pitchers are throwing, they can’t hold out without help.

“If you are looking for something positive in this, it’s making the pitchers bear down, because they know they have to pitch their butts off to win,” Bowa said. “But then you realize all of these good pitching performances are going by the wayside. And that’s the bad part.”

Wednesday it was Grant’s turn, as he pitched what probably was the best game of his two-year career. He gave up only 5 hits in 7 shutout innings, running his scoreless-inning streak to 13. Since a public scolding by Bowa after Grant gave up four runs in four innings to Pittsburgh April 30, he has yielded one run in 15 innings, lowering his ERA to 3.24. Of course, thanks to the offense, he is 0-3.

“It’s tough,” Grant said. “I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t.”

There was another disappointment for Grant Wednesday. His father Larry, an architect in nearby Joliet, could not get off work to come watch him pitch.

“Sure, I was upset. How many fathers get to see their sons pitch in the big leagues?” Grant said.

Oh yes. That was the big leagues Wednesday, wasn’t it?

Padre Notes

Eric Show’s first day in Chicago since his beaning of Andre Dawson July 7 was uneventful. He checked into the team hotel under his real name, and even hung around the periphery of the team dugout before the game. There wasn’t so much as a harassing phone call or catcall. “But I didn’t go running on the field or anything,” Show said. “I’m not sure anybody really got a good look at me. We’ll see tomorrow (today).” Show will face the Cubs’ Calvin Schiraldi today at 1:05 p.m. PDT in what could be an eventful afternoon. “All I can say is, I am going to give it my best,” Show said. “You can darn well bet they will get everything I have.” Shows says he will not speak to Chicago media and has asked members of the San Diego media not to give his postgame quotes to anyone from Chicago. After last year’s incident, the Chicago newspapers called him everything short of a murderer. This included “liar.” Said Show: “I can’t put myself through that again. Anything I say, they will write what they want anyway, just like last year.” . . . Tony Gwynn’s right thumb was reexamined by Dr. Paul Hirshmann in San Diego Tuesday and Wednesday, and Hirshmann concurred with the earlier diagnosis of a severe sprain that required immobilization. The thumb was taken out of a cast and put into a splint, but Gwynn still cannot use it for at least another week, and may not return for another three weeks. . . . Third baseman Chris Brown, nursing a painful cyst on his right hand, did not take batting practice Wednesday, nor will he hit Thursday. “I am going to wait until I get back to San Diego this weekend to see how I feel,” Brown said. “I want to start hitting then.” Larry Bowa said he won’t put Brown in the lineup until Brown says he is ready. “It’s all up to him,” Bowa said.