Padres Beaten in Ninth, 3-2, by .216 Hitter

So how did you spend your summer Saturday night? What were you doing at, say, around 10:30 p.m.? One 24-year-old was sitting on a plastic stool, his right shoulder wrapped in ice, hunched over like an old man, with a voice like winter.

“Hey, I’m the biggest disappointment on the club,” Lance McCullers said, sarcastically.

He paused.

“I am not the biggest disappointment on the club,” he said. “I have not dominated, but I am not the biggest disappointment on this club.”

The confusing and painful aging of a boy wonder continues. Saturday night, Lance McCullers threw another pitch that cost the Padres another game. He allowed a two-out, two-strike, ninth-inning single by .216-hitting rookie Luis Alicea that gave the St. Louis Cardinals a 3-2 comeback win.

And not just any comeback. Entering the bottom of the ninth, the Padres led, 2-1, and stopper Mark Davis was pitching, and the defense was fresh from a splendid “game-saving” double play. The Cardinals were fresh from eight consecutive losses. Rarely have three outs seemed such a formality.

“I thought it was over,” Tim Flannery said.

“I thought, ‘This is mine,’ ” starting pitcher Ed Whitson said.

These are the Padres. So think again. Willie McGee opened the inning with a sharp grounder that bounced off Davis’ bare hand for a single. If Davis hadn’t gotten his hand in the way, the ball would have rolled to second baseman Roberto Alomar for an easy out.

McGee then stole second and took third on catcher Benito Santiago’s throwing error. One out later, pinch-hitter Terry Pendleton hit a pitch off his shoe tops down the left-field line to score McGee with the tying run.

After an intentional walk to Jose Oquendo, in came McCullers. He fooled Tony Pena into a ground out to second that moved pinch-runner Tom Lawless to third. McCullers then went to 3-and-2 on rookie Alicea, who had only 21 RBIs in 71 games.

Then Alicea fooled him--and everyone else--with a soft liner into left field that scored Lawless and brought the sweaty crowd of 44,882 fans to their feet.

“The ball was down, a good pitch, the best pitch I threw,” McCullers said.

“It was a tough pitch to hit,” Cardinal Manager Whitey Herzog agreed. “I can’t believe he swung at it.”

Believe it. Whether it was McCullers’ fault or not, we have been here before.

Two weeks ago, he allowed a ninth-inning homer to Tom Brunansky to give the Cardinals a 5-4 win in San Diego. A week before that, he walked in the winning run in a 4-3 loss to the Cincinnati Reds.

This season, McCullers has thrown six pitches that have resulted in Padre losses. At the All-Star break, critics called him the team’s biggest disappointment.

“‘I have not been completely terrible,” he protested Saturday after his 1-5 record remained unchanged and Davis fell to 4-7. “I have had a string of bad luck. I’ve been bad in certain situations, but I’ve given it all I’ve got and just been inconsistent.”

Padre Manager Jack McKeon, who because of the outcome needed to defend a couple of his pitching moves, defended McCullers, even though he has only six saves, after leading the team with 16 last season.

“Those guys (relievers) are in a no-win situation,” McKeon said. “Their margin of error is slight. Lance is throwing the ball well. I’ve got to keep bringing him in there. We can’t use Davis all the time.”

That was one of McKeon’s worries when he lifted Davis in the ninth. That was the first time Davis, who is tied for the National League lead with 16 saves, has been taken out in the middle of an inning. Davis had pitched three innings in Friday night’s 7-3 win.

McCullers, a right-hander, was brought in also because Pena bats right-handed and, ironically enough, McKeon wanted to keep Alicea in the game. Because Alicea hits better left-handed (.253) than right-handed (.141), he probably would have been lifted for a pinch-hitter if Davis had remained.

“We wanted to keep the kid in the game. We wanted to face the kid,” McKeon said, shaking his head.

Then there was starter Whitson, who left after allowing one run (Mike Laga’s homer) on five hits in eight innings. When he came in after the eighth, he was immediately sent to the showers, which made him think twice.

“I was kind of surprised, yeah,” said Whitson, the staff’s hard-luck guy. He has four no-decisions in his last five appearances, even though each time he left the game with the lead. In his last nine appearances, he is 5-0 with a 3.07 ERA.

The eight innings represented a season high for Whitson.

“We had gone as long as we wanted with him,” McKeon said. “We didn’t want to take a chance. We had a guy like Davis down there, one of the best, so there was no reason to chance it.”

The loss ruined another hitting show by Tony Gwynn, who went 3 for 4 with a homer.

In increasing his hitting streak to a team season-high 11 games, he increased his batting average to .533 during that time (24 for 45), which has increased his overall average to .294.

“I’m running to first base these days thinking, ‘Why is this happening now?’ ” said Gwynn, who was hitting .237 as recently as June 13.

Gwynn’s third-inning homer, his fourth, gave the Padres a 2-0 lead after Flannery had an RBI triple in the second. For Flannery, who has a sore ankle, it was the first triple since May 1, 1987.

Saturday’s ninth-inning mess also ruined what was perhaps the Padres’ best double play this year. In the eighth, after Vince Coleman had hit a one-out infield single, Ozzie Smith grounded the ball sharply to third baseman Flannery, who threw to first for the sure out.

But when Coleman rounded second, he kept going, attempting to sneak third base. Keith Moreland quickly threw back to Flannery, who tagged the diving Coleman just as he reached the base, ending the inning.

Padre Notes

Center fielder Marvell Wynne went 0 for 4 with two strikeouts Saturday, increasing his slump to 0 for 14 with 8 strikeouts in his last 13 at-bats.