Padres Send Reds Packing

Before the Cincinnati Reds took the field Sunday against the Padres, Manager Pete Rose talked boldly about his team’s chances of catching the Dodgers in the National League West.

Said Rose: “We win this one, and then we’ll have things in our own hands in L.A. the next three nights. We also get the Dodgers in our place next week, so this is where we can make our move.”

For now the Reds would be wise to look over their shoulders at the Padres. Their 8-5 loss at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium before a paid crowd of 18,852 left them 3 1/2 games ahead of the fifth-place Padres and shoved them 9 1/2 games behind the first-place Dodgers, who beat the Houston Astros, 6-1.

The truth is that the Reds are not even playing .500 baseball. Sunday marked their fifth chance in the past 15 days to achieve the break-even point, and their fifth failure to do so. After suffering through a game that was not as close as the score suggested, even the usually upbeat Rose was disgusted.

“We can get up to .500 by winning, and we get our worst pitched game of the year,” Rose said. “What can you do when you’re six runs down in the first two innings?”

Rose has gone to a four-man pitching rotation, but he tried to get by with his No. 5 starter, Tim Birtsas, so he could save his best for the Dodger series. As it turned out, he paid a steep price.

Birtsas failed to survive the first inning, in which the Padres scored three runs, and reliever Randy St. Claire gave up three more runs in the second. The Reds nicked winner Dennis Rasmussen for three runs in the fourth, two of them on a home run by Lloyd McClendon. But the Padres got single runs off Rob Dibble in the fourth and sixth to give Rasmussen a big enough cushion to ride out a two-run rally that Lance McCullers put down in the seventh.

“Birtsas didn’t do anything, and then our bullpen gave them five runs,” Rose said. “You can’t win with pitching like that.”

Rose did claim that the loss hadn’t done irreparable damage to the Reds’ momentum, such as it was.

“The way this team is, today’s game will have no bearing on tomorrow night’s game,” he said. “The trouble is, we just don’t play well in day games.”

The Reds’ stat sheet bore out Rose’s last statement. Their record under the sun is 14-21.

In any case, the Reds looked to be anything but pennant contenders in losing two out of three here, and the Padres continued to look as if they are a team on the move. The Padres have a 32-27 record since Jack McKeon replaced Larry Bowa as manager May 28. More importantly, they have a much brighter outlook on life.

With his team drawing so close to the Reds, McKeon was asked if climbing to fourth place is a reasonable goal.

“I’m not thinking about making a run at anybody,” McKeon said. “You tell guys they’ve got to take a team three straight, and they might lose three straight. I’m trying to eliminate a pressing attitude. We’re not making a run at anybody, not even the Atlanta Braves.”

McKeon’s last remark drew snickers from the assembled reporters, because the last-place Braves, who will play at Jack Murphy Stadium the next three nights, trail the Padres by 12 1/2 games after dropping a doubleheader in San Francisco Sunday.

Adding to Rose’s discomfiture was the fact that the Reds were beaten by a pitcher they had cast aside two months ago in a trade for the nondescript Candy Sierra.

Rasmussen is now 7-1 for the Padres, including 2-0 against his former team, after getting off to a 2-6 start for the Reds.

And Sierra? The Reds quickly sent him to their triple-A farm club at Nashville, and he hasn’t even been successful there. He has a 3-3 record, but his earned-run average is 8.39, and he has been bombed for 46 hits in 24 innings.

Predictably, Rasmussen denied that facing the club that had sent him away had given him extra incentive.

“Pitching against them was like pitching against anybody else,” Rasmussen said. “Actually, this was probably my worst game since I’ve been here. I was fortunate to get all those early runs.”

Keith Moreland, Randy Ready and Roberto Alomar singled in the runs that decked Birtsas in the first inning. Rasmussen ed off the second with a double that carried almost 400 feet, then Moreland knocked in his second run with a sacrifice fly and Carmelo Martinez sent in two more with a double.

Alomar later tripled in a run--the last one scored on a wild pitch--but nothing he or anybody else did compared with the spectacular sliding catch he made on Eric Davis’ popup in the fourth. He ran about 60 feet and grabbed the ball as he fell across the right-field foul line.

“That was one of the best plays I’ve made this season,” said Alomar, who has made a lot of great ones. “If I’m still running, I don’t get to the ball. Sliding, I get there just in time. I almost lost the ball in the sun, so I had to put my hand up as I slid.”

McCullers had control problems before gaining his eighth save. He even he drew boos from the crowd. After entering the game in the seventh inning, with two outs and the bases loaded, he threw a wild pitch, allowing a run to score. Then he gave up two walks and let in another run. He finally escaped by striking out Bo Diaz. Then he struck out the side in the eighth and added a fifth strikeout in the ninth.

Padre Notes

Padre catcher Benito Santiago sat out his second consecutive game Sunday because of a sore finger, the result of a slide into home plate Friday night. He probably will be back tonight when the Padres open a three-game series against the Atlanta Braves. . . . Third baseman Chris Brown remains day-to-day after missing his fourth game because of a wrist injury, suffered when he was hit by a pitched ball Wednesday night. . . . Randy Ready, filling in for Brown, had three singles and a walk Sunday, scored two runs, drove in one and stole a base. . . . The Padres had their second consecutive winning month, finishing July with a 14-12 record. Tony Gwynn hit .406 for the month. . . . Keith Moreland’s game-winning RBI Sunday was his eighth, topping his 1987 total with the Chicago Cubs. He has driven in the game-winner in four of the Padres’ past seven victories.