Van Slyke Thwarts Padres : Pirates Win, 3-2, on Homer, Throw by Center Fielder

Benito Santiago smacked the ball into the tricky grass of center field, and that was it. John Kruk was going to score from second base and the game was going to be tied. It was the bottom of the ninth, and the Padres were going to pull off another miracle and . . .

One problem. Three words. Sounds like the name of the guy who used to begin his comedy show by tripping over his living room furniture.

Andy Van Slyke.

The only thing this man is tripping over is greatness, as the Pirate center fielder proved Tuesday when he picked Santiago’s ball out of the wet grass with his glove and flung it to the plate. Two seconds later it arrived, bouncing once and hitting catcher Junior Ortiz in the glove, which Ortiz then bounced off Kruk’s face in a head-on collision at home plate.

Ortiz went sprawling up the first-base line but held on to the ball, and one out later, the Pirates held on to a 3-2 victory in front of 11,648 at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

One thing you should now realize about the Padres’ recent propensity to throw themselves at the other guys: Sometimes the other guys hit back.

“Awesome, awesome play,” Tony Gwynn said of Van Slyke’s 250-foot fling. “To the naked eye, he just picked it up and threw it, but anybody who plays here knows that with no bounce, that ball had to be snaking in that grass, going everywhere on him. Kruk went hard the whole way. The only thing that could beat him would be a perfect throw.

“That’s just what it was.”

Chimed in Tim Flannery: “I saw the replay. It was truly awesome.”

Chris Brown, who was running behind Kruk and stopped at second, put it in terms more vast.

“Tell you one thing,” Brown said. “I know who the best center fielder in the National League is right now, by far, all around. And that’s Andy Van Slyke.”

Oh yes, the four-year veteran also had the game-winning RBI Tuesday. And it happened to be a home run, his 13th, a two-out shot in the seventh that gave him 56 RBIs, which is among the top five in the league.

But then, this story is about his fielding, right? On to more praise.

“If Andy Van Slyke does not win a Gold Glove, they might as well throw away the award, because he’s the best; every day he does something,” Pirate Manager Jimmy Leyland said.

He added later, “Other managers come to me and say they don’t believe it. He is the best. That’s as simple as it is.”

And from Van Slyke himself, as he stood in the middle of the clubhouse with a smile and a beer: “You don’t see many outfielders do it (throwing guys out). With the grass, it’s tough because the ball is going left-right, left-right, left-right, the way the grass is cut. But everything was right. The ball wasn’t hit hard. The key was getting to it fast.”

Perhaps the key was also shocking the stocky Kruk enough that he would actually lose the collision to a guy who weighs nearly 20 pounds fewer (195-176). Kruk earlier collided with the left field wall while chasing Van Slyke’s homer and came closer to knocking the wall down than he did to scoring the tying run.

“I don’t know what happened. I don’t even know where I hit him (Ortiz),” Kruk said. “It was like--snap--it happened, and it was over.”

Said Ortiz: “He didn’t hit me that hard. He tried to roll me over. But I got my two hands on the ball.”

Pardon the Padres if they spend today’s unusual off-day between games 2 and 3 of this series (tied at 1-all) fighting the urge to wrap their hands around their necks.

The ninth-inning comeback against Pirate starter Bob Walk and reliever Barry Jones, with the Padres trailing, 3-2, was a picture of frustration.

Kruk had led off with a first-pitch single to center, and then Keith Moreland perfectly bunted him to second. Brown waited out a five-pitch walk, which led to Walk’s exit and Jones’ entrance.

Santiago hit Jones’ first pitch, and, well, you know most of the rest.

“I thought the game was tied,” Santiago said, shaking his head. “I had a single and an RBI and then . . . “

Then after Kruk was thrown out, Garry Templeton was intentionally walked to bring up pinch-hitter Randy Ready. Against hard-throwing Jones, he struck out on five pitches.

“One of those games where we just got beat,” Manager Jack McKeon said, shaking his head. “They just beat us.”

Well, not completely and exactly. At least, not according to Templeton.

The Padres won the game on Van Slyke’s homer off Jimmy Jones and his throw, sure, but that homer never would have clinched it had Templeton not booted a grounder between his legs in the fifth inning when the Padres led, 2-1. With one out, he let a Jose Lind grounder roll between his socks and into left field. A walk and a Darnell Coles single later, the game was tied.

“I just messed it up. I didn’t get my glove down. I got no excuses,” Templeton said. “It’s my fault. I could have gotten us out of the inning.”

It was a shame, too, in that the Padres, who had scored only one run in 14 previous innings against Walk this year, surprised him with twice that many in the first inning, both on Brown’s two-out, two-run single. They were his sixth and seventh RBIs in his past 10 games.

Padre Notes

According to Padre officials, today’s weird off-day--between Games 2 and 3 of this series--is a result of a preseason request by the Padres. Because Thursday afternoon games draw better crowds here than Wednesday night games, and because the Pirates’ next series, beginning Friday, is just up the road in Los Angeles, the Padres asked them to forsake the traditional Thursday off-day and play then. The Pirates agreed, which means the off-day is today. San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium will be empty, as neither team will conduct workouts. . . . Be Barnes, an administrative assistant in the Padre media relations department and one of five employees who have been with the organization since its 1969 inception, is the latest to join the disabled list. She slipped entering a Mission Valley restaurant Tuesday afternoon and fractured her hip. It is not known when she’ll return, only that the Padre media relations department will barely survive until she does. . . . Manager Jack McKeon has scheduled a 4 p.m. workout July 13 in St. Louis, the day after the All-Star Game, effectively cutting baseball’s traditional three-day break to two days for his team. To reach St. Louis, where the Padres will resume play on July 14, they will fly out of San Diego at 8:45 a.m. the day after the All-Star game. At least this 11-day trip is the yearly “family” trip, in which the Padres will fly the players’ wives and children on the team plane for free.

During the recent trip, shortstop Garry Templeton was spotted warming up in right field. Could it be . . .? “Sure, why not?” McKeon said at the time. “I almost put him in center field last month in Philadelphia. He’s got a good arm. Who knows, you might see Carmelo Martinez at third base one of these nights.” Guess who was taking ground balls at third base Monday afternoon? Martinez caught more than a few. . . . Gregg Olsen, a first-round draft pick in June, has defected from the U.S. Olympic team to the Baltimore Orioles’ farm system. Olsen’s Olympic team roommate was the Padres’ top pick, Andy Benes, who has repeatedly said he will stay with the Olympics and not report to the Padres until next spring. The Padres have heard nothing from Benes. As a matter of fact, they can’t even get his statistics, as promised by the Olympic people.

It appears that Padre first base coach Greg Riddoch’s chances of becoming the next manager of the Seattle Mariners have been reduced to next to nothing. Since the news of Riddoch’s candidacy was made public several weeks ago, the Mariners have not contracted Riddoch or the Padres for permission. Speculation is that Mariner General Manager Dick Balderson, who backed Riddoch, does not have the power to get him elected. “I haven’t paid much attention to it. It’s really out of my control,” Riddoch said. “Right now, I’m just glad to be in San Diego and with Jack (McKeon). I think if we keep doing well through the end of the season, Jack would want to come back and do it again next year, and I’d like to be part of that.” . . . McKeon celebrated his Fourth of July with an early-morning trip to the scales that showed him to be at 202 pounds, the thinnest he’s been since he came to San Diego eight years ago. Since mid-May, just before he was named manager, McKeon has lost 36 pounds and four notches on Goose Gossage’s old uniform belt, which players gave him when he became manager. Gossage, by the way, is 6-feet 3-inches tall; McKeon is 5-8.