Padres Pick the Wrong Pitch in 9th : McCullers Can’t Pull Fast One on Brunansky This Time in 5-4 Loss

Victory was just one strike away, and the fans were on their feet, yelling, “Sweep, sweep!”

How sweet it was going to be for the Padres Sunday at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium. A three-game wipeout of the defending National League champions, the St. Louis Cardinals, was as good as in the bag. All the Padres’ Lance McCullers had to do was finish the neat job he was doing on Tom Brunansky.

So much for pipe dreams.

The count went from 0-2 to 1-2, and one pitch later, the game went up in flames. When McCullers tried to throw a fastball past Brunansky, the former Minnesota Twin hit a towering two-run homer into the left-field seats.

Suddenly the shouts of “Sweep” from the crowd of 15,467 turned to boos. The Padres were now a run behind instead of a run ahead, and when they submitted meekly in their half of the ninth inning, the Cardinals had a 5-4 victory.

Brunansky’s blow not only turned the game around, it knocked the Padres’ Garry Templeton out of the headlines. Templeton, a former Cardinal, had just plagued his old team for the second straight game by putting the Padres in front with a two-run homer off reliever Todd Worrell in the eighth.

When Templeton lined Worrell’s 1-1 pitch over the right-field wall, everything was in place to proclaim him the hero of a triumphant weekend for the Padres. He had hit a game-tying home run in the Padres’ uphill victory Saturday night, and this homer gave him six hits in 11 at-bats in the series.

The home runs were Templeton’s first two of a season that is finally brightening for him after a wretched first half. He has a nine-game hitting streak. In those nine games, he is batting .452 (14 for 31) with 14 runs-batted in. His average, which was below .200 most of the season, has risen to .226.

But as much as all this means to a man who has been badly in need of a confidence-builder, the bottom line is that the Padres frittered away a game that was as good as won.

Ironically, the man who beat McCullers was the same one McCullers had retired in a sticky situation with two out in the seventh.

McCullers was brought in specifically to face Brunansky in the seventh with runners on second and third, and retired him on an easy fly to left field.

As a matter of fact, having McCullers available to pitch to Brunansky was an integral part of Padre Manager Jack McKeon’s game plan in the ninth. McKeon had his big game-saver, Mark Davis, in the bullpen, but Brunansky bats right-handed, and McKeon didn’t want the only long-ball threat in the St. Louis lineup to get a shot against a left-hander.

“I was just hoping to keep McCullers in long enough to face Brunansky,” McKeon said afterward. “If he had run into trouble, I would have had to go to Davis, and because of Brunansky, I didn’t want to do that.

“Then McCullers gets two strikes and no balls on the guy, and it looks perfect. Then he tries to go inside on him, and that’s what happens.”

Actually, though, it wasn’t as though Brunansky hadn’t tormented the Padres before. Of the 11 home runs he has hit in his two months in the National League, five have been against the Padres, all in San Diego. He also hit one Saturday night, and he hit three in two days in late April.

Interestingly, these five home runs constitute Brunansky’s entire hitting output in 22 at-bats against the Padres. This gives him only a .227 batting average against them, but check his slugging average--.909.

As distraught as McCullers was over the turn of events that made his record 1-5 instead of 2-4, he later spoke calmly about it.

“I threw him all fastballs,” the young reliever said. “The first time I faced him, I got behind 2-0, and I came in with a fastball, and he popped it to left field. Maybe I should have thrown him a slider on 0-2, but I thought I’d stick with what was working.

“The pitch he hit was from the middle in, and it was up. I wanted it to be more inside than it was. I was trying to jam him or throw it by him, and I didn’t do either one.”

Pat Dobson, the Padres’ pitching coach, summed up the home-run pitch by saying, “He got it up, but he didn’t get it in.”

The home run was a typical Brunansky moon shot, a sky-high drive like Harmon Killebrew and Dave Kingman used to hit.

Carmelo Martinez, the Padres’ left-fielder, said, “When it went up, I thought I had a chance to get it. I didn’t think it would make it. Then it started carrying.”

Brunansky, who has 47 RBIs, said, “He (McCullers) had to keep throwing me fastballs. If he throws a slider and hangs it, he’d really kick himself, because they were getting me out with inside fastballs all series.

“We needed a spark to get us going in the right direction. It seems like every time we have a game in hand, something goofy or funny turns it against us.”

Brunansky likes San Diego so much that he wants to move here. He has been looking for a house in Rancho Bernardo or Poway.

“But I don’t think they’ll let me in the stadium to hit during the winter,” he said.

Padre starter Ed Whitson worked six innings. Joe Magrane of the Cardinals got through seven. He left with the Cardinals ahead, 3-2, and Worrell’s failure to protect the lead was the fifth straight save opportunity blown by the St. Louis bullpen. But while Worrell didn’t get his 17th save, he balanced his record at 4-4.

“It was a big win,” Worrell said. “Lately, wins have been avoiding us like the plague.”

Templeton described his bittersweet feelings this way: “I’m seeing the ball better and pretty happy with a game-tying home run and a go-ahead home run against the Cardinals. It’s just unfortunate that it turned out the way it did.”

Cardinal Manager Whitey Herzog called the game “a breath-taking adventure,” and had praise for Templeton and Brunansky.

“Templeton did it to us again,” Herzog said. “He’s a great talent. And Brunansky. We’re damn near in last place now. I don’t know where we’d be without him.”

Padre Notes

Keith Moreland and Roberto Alomar were given the day off Sunday. John Kruk played first base and Randy Ready played second. Kruk’s primary position now is left field, but Carmelo Martinez stayed there. Ready had three hits and drove in two runs. Kruk had one hit. . . . St. Louis Manager Whitey Herzog on the red-hot Garry Templeton, who was a Cardinal before being traded for Ozzie Smith: “When he was with us, he had more ability than any other player I’ve ever seen.” . . . Padre Manager Jack McKeon on why the series against the Pittsburgh Pirates beginning tonight will be interrupted by an off-day Wednesday: “One of our ticket packages provides for so many (seven) businessmen’s specials on Thursday afternoons.” . . . Benito Santiago had six consecutive hits before being retired in the eighth inning. . . . In the second inning, someone in the Padre dugout asked home-plate umpire Fred Brocklander to check whether Vince Coleman’s bat had been corked. Brocklander looked it over, showed it to second-base umpire Lee Weyer and declared Coleman innocent.