A 4-2 Loss Reminds Padres a Tough Road Lies Ahead

Poway resident Joe Price, who happens to pitch for the San Francisco Giants, was driving down Interstate 15 to work Wednesday morning when he looked in his rear-view mirror and flinched.

In that mirror was Poway resident Tony Gwynn.

Several hours later, Price was on the San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium mound to save a game against the Padres. It was the seventh inning. His team led, 4-2, bases loaded, two out. He looked up and flinched.

At home plate was Tony Gwynn.

Magic?

Not this time. Not for the Padres. Gwynn took a fastball strike down the middle, then jumped too quickly at a curveball. His bat broke, and his team broke, as a few seconds later the ball fluttered harmlessly in second baseman Robby Thompson’s glove for the third out.

Thus the Padres lucklessly ended this wondrous home stand at the same time that they ended a six-game winning streak, with a 4-2 defeat and this sobering notion:

Being a hero is nice, but there’s not necessarily any steady work in it.

“Things don’t work out like they’ve been working out every night ,” said Marvell Wynne. “They aren’t supposed to.”

Not even for Mr. You Look Marvell-ous himself. After he gave the Padres a 1-0 lead with an RBI fly in the third, Wynne came up in the fifth with two out, runners on first and second and the crowd standing. But on a 2-and-2 pitch from Rick Reuschel, Wynne lined out to shortstop Chris Speier to end the inning.

Then there was rookie star Roberto Alomar. After he singled and scored the Padres’ other run in the sixth, he came up just before Gwynn in the seventh. The bases were already loaded, and there was one out. He struck out on three pitches.

And how about inspirational leader Keith Moreland--he grounded into two consecutive double plays. Or comeback hero Andy Hawkins--he allowed four runs in five innings, including Brett Butler’s 28th career homer on his 31st birthday and a two-strike, two-out, two-run single to Speier, who was hitting .222 at the time.

Reality swatted the Padres upside the head Wednesday, sending them on the road no longer needing to pinch themselves.

Some say this could be bad for them, as the players could hit the road carrying the memory of this loss instead of the memory of a 9-4 home stand, the team’s best in more than four years.

Manager Jack McKeon, as usual, says it could be good.

“Sometimes,” McKeon said, “you lose a game, and then because of that loss, you win the next five.”

How about the next 15? As much as anything, this game was nine innings’ worth of runway, lifting the Padres to bigger and more important things: their longest trip of the season.

Beginning Friday in Los Angeles, and ending sometime around the lighting of the year’s first firecracker, the Padres will play 15 road games in 14 days, all against West Division teams. It would be no big deal except:

- The Padres have the second-worst road record in baseball at 5-18.

- They have played fewer road games than anyone in baseball.

- Their first five games are not only against the division-leading Dodgers but are spread over just three days, with doubleheaders on Friday and Sunday to partially make up for the three rainouts in Dodger Stadium April 19-21.

- The Dodgers have worked their rotation so that all five regular starting pitchers will face the Padres. This means, among other fun things, that Padre hitters must face a Sunday afternoon of Fernando Valenzuela and Orel Hershiser.

It is a trip so big and important and unusual around here, the Padres aren’t quite sure how to approach it.

Said Gwynn: “I think this is a do-or-die trip.

Said McKeon: “We aren’t making any big deal out of road trips. You guys (the media) do.”

Whatever, the facts are plain and were easily framed by Hawkins, who fell to 5-6 while his ERA rose to 3.76.

“We have to look at this as a chance to really establish something positive,” Hawkins said. “We can convince a lot of teams we can compete in this league. All of us already believe it, but after those first five games (in Los Angeles), we’re going to know .”

Gwynn was more specific.

“We can’t go 5-10, we can’t go 4-11,” Gwynn said. “We have to play around .500. This is a chance to pick up ground on teams we have to beat.”

If it weren’t for McKeon’s ever-present jolliness, the Padres might have spent late Wednesday afternoon beating on themselves. The Giants committed one more error (2-1) and had no more hits (8-8).

But beginning in the fourth inning, Hawkins got wild, and the Padres’ bats didn’t, and now when discussing the Padres, instead of saying “six consecutive wins,” you must say, “six out of the past seven.”

“Hey,” said McKeon, “I’ll take six out of seven anytime.”

That’s the attitude most of the Padres were taking, although they lost the lead for good with three Giant runs in the fourth, which featured two of Hawkins’ four walks and Speier’s punch single to right. And although in the fifth, Butler added his second homer of the year--and his second against the Padres.

Begin and end the positive-thinking tape with the Padres’ seventh, featuring Alomar and the slump-fighting Gwynn, who had four hits in his previous six at-bats before facing Price. In fact, Gwynn termed a sixth-inning single to left field “my best swing of the year,” and he had raised his average to .252 by the seventh.

With the Padres trailing, 4-2, and one out in the inning, Garry Templeton singled past third for his third hit of the game. Pinch-hitter Randy Ready then walked on four pitches, and that was all for Reuschel, who was suddenly in danger of allowing more than his career average of 2.5 runs per game against the Padres.

In came Price, who played high school baseball in Santee (at Santana) and has lived here since. Despite his 3.60 ERA, he entered the game having allowed 3 of 6 inherited runners to score, and it looked as if it would happen again when Wynne greeted him with a single to load the bases.

But then Alomar, seeing Price for the first time, struck out in less than a minute.

“It’s not going to be the first time I strike out with bases loaded and not the last time,” Alomar said. “I didn’t know what his best pitch was, but I see fastballs, so I learn. Next time, I’m going to get him.”

The next person up was Gwynn, which Price found “funny, kind of ironic” after he saw the outfielder on the highway earlier in the day.

Not that he didn’t take him seriously--”Tony Gwynn is Tony Gwynn; I don’t care what it says on the scoreboard (concerning his low batting average),” Price said. “I just try to take the sting out of his bat as much as I can.”

So he did, with an 0-and-1 curveball, tarnishing a little bit of the Padres’ home stand with it.

“The first pitch was a fastball down the middle, and I was cursing myself for taking it,” Gwynn said of the first strike. “Then I lunged at the next ball. I knew I should have stayed back. That’s what I told myself running down to first base.

“But hey, I had swings today that felt good. When things are going good, I’m not going to worry about the bad too much.”

If the rose-colored glasses fit, wear them. The Padres will have, oh, the next 15 days to find out.

Padre Notes

The Padres are as close to signing their top draft pick, Andy Benes, as they have been. After a discussion Wednesday between Padre farm director Tom Romenesko and Benes’ representative, his father-in-law Phil Byers, the sides appear to be close on money (a good guess is a generous bonus of around $225,000) and have agreed to talk again today. There is one hold-up--the Padres are worried about giving loads of guarantees to someone who will pitch a grueling Olympic schedule between now and the time they see him. The University of Evansville (Ind.) pitcher is at the Olympic tryout camp in Millington, Tenn., where he will pitch his first game tonight. “We have had amicable discussions,” Romenesko said, “but there is concern with guarantees and the effect of his participation in the Olympics.” . . . With their sixth consecutive victory Tuesday night, the Padres earned the right to wear dress jeans on trips, a promise made by Manager Jack McKeon when he took over the club. “Now,” McKeon said, “they want to know if after winning eight straight games, they can win tennis shoes.” Although he has lost 24 pounds since mid-May and is down around the 200 mark, McKeon still has no jeans that will fit him. He has promised to buy some before Friday’s bus trip to Los Angeles. . . . For those who think McKeon is a soft touch, he actually got struggling Tony Gwynn to skip batting practice before Tuesday night’s game, in which he went 2 for 4 with an RBI. “Jack is Mr. Optimistic. He makes you feel good about yourself even when you are going bad,” Gwynn said. “He felt I was pressing too much, taking too many hacks, and I guess it worked out pretty good.”

Because Andy Hawkins threw 101 pitches Wednesday, the Padres will need to dip into their bullpen to find a starting pitcher for the second game of Sunday’s doubleheader with Los Angeles, as it will be the fifth game in three days. The winner probably will be Mark Grant or Greg Booker, whoever throws the fewest relief pitches between now and then. “We won’t know until the last minute. It all depends on how much we need them beforehand,” pitching coach Pat Dobson said. . . . Before Wednesday’s game, the Giants’ Brett Butler ran up to Marvell Wynne behind the batting cage and laughingly rubbed his back against Wynne’s side, as if trying to obtain some of Wynne’s hot hitting luck. Sure enough, Butler went 2 for 5 with his second homer of the season and scored two runs. . . . Shortstop Jose Uribe rejoined the Giants Wednesday for the first time since his wife, Sara, died June 1 of heart failure one day after childbirth, leaving him with three children age 3 and under. In a pregame meeting with reporters, Uribe was composed and matter-of-fact. “Everybody knows the thing that happened to me was really bad,” he said. “I know what happened, and I have got to keep going, keep positive. I know it’s hard for anyone when that stuff happens.” Said Giant Manager Roger Craig: “I’ll let him set his own program. When he’s ready to play, he’ll start playing. He’ll be the judge of that.” Craig said he figures Uribe will play “a little” in Thursday’s exhibition game in Phoenix, then will start Friday night in Cincinnati. Uribe was hitting .243 with six errors in 49 games.