Whitson Gets Help He Needs to Beat Cubs

Jack McKeon, the Padres’ manager, says he doesn’t pay attention to batting averages.

“I don’t care what guys are hitting as long as we are scoring runs,” he said Saturday night. “I don’t even look at their averages. I look at results.”

McKeon could say the same thing about his pitching staff. The latest statistics show the Padres rated second-to-last in the National League, but games such as Saturday night’s confound those numbers and give McKeon more reason to look at the bottom line rather than the overall earned-run average.

The Padres got just what they wanted from their three pitchers Saturday, and the result was a 4-2 victory over the Chicago Cubs before a crowd of 28,364 at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

The Padres had a quality start from Ed Whitson (8-5), who allowed two runs and five hits (all singles), walked none and struck out six to match a season high in his 6 innings. The victory extended his winning streak to five games, matching a career high he has achieved four times, most recently with the Padres in 1984.

“I had the best stuff I’ve had all season,” Whitson said. “Everything I threw was on the black.”

But the strong effort from Whitson was not all the Padres had. Their two bullpen aces--Lance McCullers and Mark Davis--shut down the Cubs after Whitson was chased by two runs on four consecutive singles in the seventh.

McCullers pitched 2 perfect innings before he walked Ryne Sandberg with two out in the ninth and was replaced by left-hander Davis.

Cub Manager Don Zimmer then switched left-handed hitting Mark Grace with right-handed Andre Dawson. But Dawson, who did not start because of a slight knee injury, grounded into a fielder’s choice to end the game. The out earned Davis his 16th save in 18 chances, tying him with Todd Worrell of St. Louis for the National League lead.

“I figured as I was running in from the bullpen that they’d make that switch,” Davis said. “With Dawson up there, they have a chance to tie the game with just one pitch.”

Instead, the Cubs ended up with their fourth consecutive loss. After losing six in a row to the Cubs, the Padres are one game away from a three-game series sweep.

Their victory Saturday was a result of strong pitching and an offense that chipped away for four runs on 12 hits against four Cub pitchers.

The Padres chased starter Rick Sutcliffe after just 2 innings, scoring single runs against him in each of the first three innings.

Marvell Wynne, who entered the game with a career .391 average (9 for 23) against Sutcliffe, led off the Padre first with a single to center and was sacrificed to second by Roberto Alomar. Tony Gwynn then singled Wynne home, extending his hitting streak to seven games.

But after John Kruk walked to place runners at first and second with one out, Sutcliffe got Keith Moreland and Benito Santiago to fly out to center.

Garry Templeton started the Padres in the second with a one-out single to right. He advanced to second on Whitson’s sacrifice and to third on Sutcliffe’s wild pitch before scoring on Wynne’s single to center.

Gwynn, who is hitting .500 (14 for 28) in his seven-game streak, got his second single to lead off the third and then stole second. Kruk walked for the second time against Sutcliffe and the 48th time this season.

Moreland, whose two-run single had helped give the Padres a 4-2 victory Friday, slashed a single to left that scored Gwynn and gave him his team-leading 33rd RBI.

Santiago lined to third for the first out, but when the next batter, left-hander Tim Flannery, lined Sutcliffe’s second pitch hard and just foul down the left field line, Zimmer had seen enough. He walked purposefully to the mound, took the ball out of Sutcliffe’s hand and called on left-hander Frank DiPino, who got Flannery to ground into a double play to end the inning.

“I took him out because I wanted to take him out,” Zimmer said. “When I decide to make the change, I make it.”

It was a rare early exit for Sutcliffe (7-6) against the Padres. He had beaten them, 6-3, on May 4 and entered the game 10-5 with a 3.01 ERA lifetime against them. The loss was only his second in his past six decisions, the previous two of which had been 2-1 victories.

“I just didn’t make good pitches,” Sutcliffe said. “I couldn’t get the ball down in the strike zone. There wasn’t anything that was working.”

DiPino soon added to the Cubs’ troubles in the fourth by giving up an infield single to Whitson. Wynne followed with his third hit on a single to right that rookie Gary Varsho bobbled, allowing Whitson to reach third. Whitson scored on Alomar’s single to center to give the Padres a 4-0 lead.

The Padres failed to score in the fifth, but Santiago did get the team’s 10th single to extend his hitting streak to nine games, one short of the team’s season high.

Whitson, meanwhile, was off to a strong start, allowing just one hit, walking none and striking out six in the first six innings.

He was helped by a fine play from Wynne in the fifth. Grace hit a fly ball deep to left-center that Wynne caught over his left shoulder on the dead run before crashing into the wall.

“I had to make a basket catch,” Wynne said. “There was no time to camp under it. I figured I had a 50-50 chance. I got a good jump, and I never took my eye off the ball. It was like a wide receiver catching a bomb from a quarterback.”

Whitson’s fastball was especially strong, as several times he shook off other pitches from Santiago and threw it past some surprised Cubs.

Not until the seventh did Whitson get into trouble, but once he did, it all came apart quickly. He allowed four consecutive one-out singles, the last by third baseman Vance Law with the bases loaded. Law’s hit scored two runs to cut the Padre lead to 4-2 and sent Whitson to the dugout, to be replaced by McCullers.

“He threw only 85 pitches, and he wasn’t out of gas,” said Pat Dobson, the pitching coach, “but he got a couple of balls up in the strike zone, and that’s when they started hitting him.”

McCullers got catcher Jody Davis to ground out to third on a slow roller on which Flannery was able to make a play only because of Davis’ glaring lack of speed. The Cubs then took themselves out of the inning when, with Varsho at bat, Law was picked off second by Santiago.

“That bottled that inning right up,” McKeon said. “You just can’t go sleep out there with Benny.”

Said Templeton: “Law was running off pretty far. He wanted to be able to score on a single. It was mostly eye control between me and Benny. I caught his eye, and he caught mine, and the ball was on. It wasn’t even close.”

Said Santiago: “Tempy gave me a sign after he threw the ball back to the pitcher. As soon as I let the ball go I knew I had him.”

The victory was Whitson’s first since July 17 against the Dodgers in Dodger Stadium. He had no decisions in his past two starts. He has not lost since a 7-3 game at Philadelphia May 30.

The current streak began with a relief victory June 4 against Atlanta, after Whitson had been sent to the bullpen after a series of ineffective starts. Included in that stretch was a 13-5 loss to the Cubs on May 3, in which he lasted only three innings, allowing 7 runs, 6 hits and 3 walks in only 3 innings.