Padres Are Forced Into Another Doubleheader : So Far This Year, Rainouts Have Been All-or-Nothing Situations for San Diego

At 6:05 p.m. here Monday, with no black clouds in the sky and not a drop of water on the field, the good people of Three Rivers Stadium rolled out the tarp. Just as the Padres were preparing to take batting practice.

“Oh,” said Tim Flannery, referring to the hot Pittsburgh Pirates, “so this is how you win nine games in a row.”

Flannery was joking. The groundskeepers were not. An hour later the city was hit with one of the worst rain deluges of the summer, flooding the aisles and, at 8:11 p.m. here, postponing Monday’s game between the Padres and the Pirates.

The game will be played today at 2:35 p.m. PDT as part of a twi-night doubleheader, the Padres’ third doubleheader of the season. A decision will be made today as to the KUSI-Channel 51 broadcast, which was supposed to begin today at 4 p.m. Monday’s starting pitchers will remain the same for today’s first game, as Padre Jimmy Jones will face John Smiley. The second game will feature Padre ace Andy Hawkins against Brian Fisher.

Doubleheaders have been all-or-nothing propositions for the Padres this year. They swept one against the Dodgers on June 17 and were swept in the other by the Dodgers on June 19. One more is scheduled in Los Angeles Sept. 21.

One might think the prospects of winning both games tonight are not so good, as the Pirates are in the midst of the longest winning streak in the National League this season at nine games. They have not lost since July 4, when the Padres won, 4-3, at San Diego.

“But who knows, maybe the rain will cool them off,” said Padre Manager Jack McKeon, whose team experienced its fourth rainout of the season after going all of last season without one.

None of this was going to faze the boss, who after the postponement said he was going back to the hotel to watch other guys play baseball.

“The Mets and Reds are on TV, aren’t they?” he asked, suddenly brightening. “Wait a minute, aren’t the Braves playing a doubleheader, aren’t they? Hey, that should be on TV.”

The rest of the Padres, who have won five of seven games and are fresh from taking three of four in St. Louis, were also taking the rain with a shrug. They’ve seen worse, and weirder, and right here.

“Four years ago, we come in here for a three-game series,” Tony Gwynn said. “We get to the park at 2 in the afternoon for a night game. It’s raining, so they call the game.”

They postponed it later that night?

“No, they called it right away, at 2:30 in the afternoon,” Gwynn said. “Sure enough, by 4, the sun is shining and it’s a beautiful day and we’re sitting around the room playing cards and having a great time.

“The Pirates weren’t drawing well, or playing well, and they figured what the heck.”

The next day, Gwynn noted, they quickly postponed an afternoon game.

“Same thing,” he said. “Soon as they call it off, it’s clear as a bell for the rest of the day, but it doesn’t matter. So we end up playing six games in four days.”

Better that, Flannery said, than to play in a game delayed by rain. And delayed. And delayed.

“We went through two rain delays, and after the second delay I’m the first guy up,” Flannery said. “I look at the mound and the scoreboard clock and suddenly I realized, it’s 12:03 a.m. and John Candelaria is pitching and he’s coming in from the side.

“I thought, ‘It’s 12:03 a.m., there’s 15 people in the stands, what am I doing here?’ Three pitches, three strikes, and I’m back in the dugout. What a great mission that was.”

Keith Moreland, when he played in Philadelphia, once looked up and found himself pinch-hitting at 3:45 a.m.

“It was against the Giants, and I popped out, and that’s all I remember,” Moreland said. “That, and the fact we had a day game the next day.”

Padre Notes

The National League announced Monday that Tony Gwynn had been named player of the week for the four days that began after the All-Star break. In four games, all in St. Louis, Gwynn went 9 for 17 (.529) with a home run and five RBIs. It was the second straight week Gwynn has been so honored, tying him with Montreal’s Andres Galarraga as the only NL player to win two consecutive such awards this year.