Father Throws Best as Padres Win, 4-1 : Rasmussen Beats Reds for Third Time While a New Daughter Waits at Home

It was an ordinary game with an extraordinary undercurrent. On Saturday night against the Cincinnati Reds, it was a 4-1 victory for the Padres, pitcher Dennis Rasmussen and fatherhood.

Before Rasmussen boarded the team bus in the San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium parking lot Thursday morning, bound for a charter plane bound for Cincinnati, he kissed his pregnant wife, Sharon. As in, due-any-day-now pregnant.

“I asked her how she was feeling,” he said. “She said fine. I figured I could go to Cincinnati, make my start Saturday, and then get back in time for the baby. So I left.”

A couple of hours later, from the back of the charter, he phoned her again. Her response was something along the lines of, funny he should call. She was on her way out the door with Greg Booker’s wife, Kristi.

“She had already started contractions,” he said. “They were going to have the baby.”

A few hours later the plane landed, Rasmussen called again, and that was that. He had missed it. His wife had given birth to their fourth daughter, Michelle Marie.

“Now I had to think, do I fly back for one day or do I stay here?” Rasmussen said. “I finally figured there’s nothing I can do back there now. I stay here, make my start, and then get back home.”

Thus it happened that on Friday afternoon he passed out cigars to his old buddies on the Reds--and Saturday night, he exploded in their faces.

In defeating the Reds for the third time in three starts against them since the June 8 trade, he allowed six hits over eight innings with eight strikeouts, including six in a row at one point. The Reds scored their only run on a double-play grounder, and except for that, no other runner reached third.

Afterward, Rasmussen calmly refused, for the umpteenth time, to rip the Reds for trading him. He refused to do anything but quietly give thanks for his new address and his new lease on his career.

Then he looked for a beer and an already-purchased plane ticket.

“At 9:12 tomorrow morning,” he said, smiling, “I’m gone.”

He will not rejoin the team until Tuesday or Wednesday in Atlanta, but who’s to argue? Certainly not Manager Jack McKeon or Rasmussen’s teammates, who have watched, sometimes in awe, as he has gone 8-1 with a 2.87 ERA in 11 Padre starts.

“He’s the kind of kid where you just give him the ball every five days, let him work himself out of tough situations, and he’ll come through,” McKeon said. “He doesn’t jump all over the mound like some pitchers, but he’s just as intense, and it shows. We told him we believed in him, but other than that, whatever Raz has done belongs to Raz.”

“He’s been our ace,” said Keith Moreland, who was something similar Saturday with two two-out RBI singles.

“He was dealing tonight, and it’s been the same since we got him,” marveled Mark Davis, who relieved Rasmussen after a leadoff single by Eric Davis in the ninth and shut the Reds down for his 19th save.

Of course, those are his teammates. In the other clubhouse, his old manager wasn’t quite so kind.

“Either you have to give all the credit to Dennis, or say that our hitters aren’t swinging the bat good,” said Pete Rose, who, Red personnel have said, never showed enough confidence in Rasmussen for Rasmussen to have confidence in himself.

You’d think Rose would be impressed now, considering that Rasmussen has held the Reds to eight runs in 22 innings (3.27 ERA) since the trade, which occurred when he was 2-6 with a 5.75 ERA.

“I guess since our hitters had 15 hits the other night (in the Reds’ 10-7 win Friday), you would have to say it’s Rasmussen,” Rose concluded. “He’s in a good groove now. Don’t ask me how or why.”

Through all this, Rasmussen has really not tried to explain why, either. Perhaps he can explain it as easily as he could explain how you pitch two days after your wife gives birth to a baby you haven’t seen yet.

“It was like I was doing the easy part,” Rasmussen said. “And it wasn’t like my wife was in labor while I was on the mound or anything.

“This is how I learned to pitch in New York (with the Yankees from 1984-86). I learned to block everything out.”

A teammate said one thing he couldn’t have blocked out was that these were the Reds.

“I know he’s not going to say it, or admit . . . but it’s got to be real nice for him to do this to the Reds. I know it’s got to be,” said Davis, who says he gets hyped to face his old team, the San Francisco Giants. “You can just see that feeling out there.”

“Just another game, another team,” Rasmussen said. “Shoot, I’m thankful to the Reds. I’m thankful they traded me here.”

That attitude carried through Saturday night’s second and third innings, when Rasmussen suddenly went on a fastball-curveball rage in which he struck out six consecutive Reds; the final four didn’t even swing. The streak was two short of the Padres’ record of eight set by Tim Lollar in 1984 against the New York Mets.

“I wasn’t sure what was happening. I certainly wasn’t trying to strike people out,” Rasmussen said. “I was having success with my breaking ball and just trying to get each hitter. Sometimes that just happens.”

By the end of the third, the Padres had a 1-0 lead on John Kruk’s triple and Benito Santiago’s RBI fly. The Reds tied it in the fifth after Lloyd McClendon led off with a single to left and eventually scored on Bo Diaz’s double-play grounder.

Enter Moreland. With Red starter Jose Rijo en route to striking out eight and fooling many more, the Padres could do little more until the sixth, when Roberto Alomar led off with a triple.

But then Tony Gwynn struck out. And Kruk struck out.

“I never thought in a million years that would happen to both of us with a guy on third,” Kruk said. “That’s what makes Moreland so tough.”

You see, Moreland then stood up and fought off a curveball and put it into center field to score Alomar with the eventual game-winner. It was his fifth game-winning RBI in the Padres’ last 10 victories.

He later did the same thing in the eighth, a two-out single up the middle to score Gwynn, who had singled after Marvell Wynne’s 10th homer. That RBI cinched it and gave Moreland 20 RBIs in his last 29 games and the team lead with 47.

“I know he has hit into a lot of double plays (13, second on the team) and hasn’t hit a lot of homers (3, ninth on the team) and people want to criticize him,” McKeon said of Moreland. “But he gets a lot of key two-out hits for us. When it comes down to the big play, he’s a real pro. He knows how to play the game.”

“Just trying to do anything I can,” said Moreland, who earlier in the game actually bunted with no out and a runner on third but plopped the ball right back to the pitcher. “However I can get the runner in, I’ll try it. In a lot of ways. it’s been a frustrating year, but I’m always the kind of guy who will do whatever it takes.”

Sort of like Saturday night’s pitcher. Oh yes, no story mentioning Rasmussen would be complete without citing the accomplishments of the pitcher the Padres sent to the Reds in exchange for Rasmussen: one Candy Sierra, 21. The kid is 4-3 with a 5.53 ERA--for triple-A Nashville.

“It was not a bad trade, but I’m not going to gloat over it,” McKeon said with a smile.

Neither is Rose.

“A business decision that’s working out well for the other side,” Rose said. “For now.”

Padre Notes

The head cold that Stanley Jefferson contracted on the plane ride from San Diego Thursday developed into an all-out virus Saturday, and trainer Dick Dent ordered him to stay away from the other players. So Jefferson, never one to disobey orders, was seen eating his postgame meal outside the clubhouse. As he was hitting only .132 left-handed, the switch-hitting Jefferson was not going to start Saturday against right-handed Jose Rijo anyway. He may rest again today, even with left-hander Tom Browning pitching for the Reds. . . . In Jefferson’s place Saturday, Marvell Wynne singled and hit his first homer in a month and then announced that being benched upon Jefferson’s recall from triple-A on July 26 was not like being benched at all. “I don’t feel anything different. I’m still getting a chance to play,” said Wynne, whose 10 homers still lead the team. “I don’t feel any different at all.”

Tony Gwynn increased his new hitting streak to five games Saturday in about the only way he ever extends those things--with two hits. Four of the streak’s five games have been multiple-hit games. In his recently ended 18-game hitting streak, Gwynn had two or more hits in 15 games. In this latest five-game binge, he is hitting .450 (9 for 20) and has increased his batting average to .308. The league leader, Gerald Perry of Atlanta (.321 through Friday), has slowly drifted back toward Gwynn.

In the Farmers’ Night festivities before Saturday’s game, Mark Grant and Greg Booker apparently lost the egg toss when the egg cracked in Grant’s hand after a long toss by Booker. But the Padre duo was declared the winner after an egg tossed between Reds Paul O’Neill and John Franco hit the artificial turf and bounced into the air. They had been using a hard-boiled egg.

PADRES AT A GLANCE SECOND INNING

Padres--Kruk tripled to right. Moreland grounded to pitcher. Santiago flied to right, Kruk scoring. Flannery struck out. One run, one hit.

FIFTH INNING

Reds--McClendon singled to left. O’Neill singled to center, McClendon taking third. Diaz grounded into double play, McClendon scoring. Concepcion grounded to second. One run, two hits.

SIXTH INNING

Padres--Alomar tripled to right. Gwynn struck out. Kruk struck out. Moreland singled to center, Alomar scoring. Santiago lined to third. One run, two hits, one left.

EIGHTH INNING

Padres--Wynne homered to right, his 10th. Alomar struck out. Gwynn singled to left. Murphy replaced Rijo. Kruk grounded to shortstop, Gwynn stopping at second. Dibble replaced Murphy. Moreland singled to center, Gwynn scoring. Santiago grounded to second. Two runs, three hits, one left.