Bad Fit Is Pitched and Bad Pitch Is Hit as Padres Lose, 2-1
In the fourth inning Thursday, nobody knew that the Padres would suffer a table-banging 2-1 loss to the Atlanta Braves.
But it’s not often that Keith Moreland gets mad on the baseball field. It’s even less often that he gets so mad, he attempts to turn his equipment into fly balls.
So maybe somebody should have guessed . . .
With runners on second and third and one out in the fourth inning, Moreland reached out toward a wide two-strike pitch from Pete Smith and took a half-swing.
What happened next, as recounted by several Padre players and Moreland, is enough to make a man’s hair turn red.
“Ball,” shouted home plate umpire Ed Montague.
Catcher Bruce Benedict pointed to first base umpire Greg Bonin for a second opinion.
“Strike three,” shouted Bonin.
Moreland held out his hands, shook his head in disbelief, then stomped toward the dugout.
No. 1 in line for takeoff . . . his bat. It left his hand and windmilled through the night air down the third-base line.
“That’s a $100 fine,” Montague shouted.
Moreland, still stomping away, didn’t hear him.
Which could only mean one thing.
Next in line for takeoff . . . his helmet. With a quick flick of his strong right wrist, he threw his helmet. Straight up. The last time anyone saw anything similar, the sport was skeet shooting.
“Now you’re gone!” Montague shouted.
Call it one of baseball’s few ejections in which the offending player never opened his mouth.
“I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t say anything, not one word,” said Moreland, who was penalized by a little-used baseball rule that calls for an automatic ejection when two pieces of equipment are thrown. It’s little-used because most players never can think of two pieces to throw.
“Now that I know that,” Moreland said, “shoot, next time I’m cussing and swearing and doing all of those things.”
After the ejection and an ensuing argument from Manager Jack McKeon, who--judging by the amount of tobacco juice he spit--has never heard of the rule, either, things did not get better.
Stanley Jefferson, who had one homer and three RBIs this season, took Moreland’s place as the cleanup hitter. Then the Padres continued the frustration initiated by Moreland, blowing a perfectly good opportunity for a three-game sweep.
Next up, pennant-contending Houston in a loud, rocking Astrodome for a four-game weekend series that could show just how far this team has come.
“I can’t wait,” Tony Gwynn said. “Because we’re playing a pennant contender, we’ll be in the lead highlight film on ESPN every night. Everybody will see us.
“Lately on that show, we’ve been an afterthought. You never see or hear about us until the end of the broadcast, when the guys says, ‘Yes, and recapping tonight’s scores . . . ‘ This will be a chance to show people what we’ve been doing.”
Sometimes one wonders if that’s such a good idea.
Thursday’s game, which began during this city’s rush hour (5:40 p.m. EDT), was decided when Padre starter Jimmy Jones suffered another head-on collision with common sense. He allowed the winning run in the seventh inning with a two-out, down-the middle fastball to .130-hitting rookie Terry Blocker.
Blocker sent the ball bouncing to the left-field wall. Dion James scored from second base, and Blocker had his first big-league RBI, triple and reason to cheer.
Your strategy on that pitch, Mr. Jones?
“A bad one,” Jones said.
And you, Mr. Blocker?
“I was standing on third and thanking God,” Blocker said.
McKeon was saying other things, considering that he had ordered Jones to pitch to Blocker even though James was on second base, first base was open, and the pitcher, Smith, was due up next.
“It was because I knew they would pinch-hit Ted Simmons for the pitcher, and I would rather face the kid instead of Simmons (a 19-year veteran),” McKeon said. “I wanted Jimmy to let the kid get himself out. If he walks him, fine, but make him beat you. But he laid the ball down the middle.
“Sure, Jimmy pitched a good game (five hits in eight innings). But what does it matter if you don’t win?”
Jones has pitched quite a few good games lately but continues to be the starting staff’s enigma. In his past seven starts, he has a 2.88 ERA, but he is just 2-3 during that time and 7-10 overall.
“I guess deep inside, you can think that you are pitching better than a 7-10 record . . . I would love it if just every time I pitched good we won, and every time I pitched bad we lost,” Jones mused. “But it doesn’t work that way. It’s not that simple.”
Neither was Smith, the young and usually wild Atlanta pitcher the Padres had racked for seven runs in his previous 8 innings against them this year. This time, they sleepwalked, managing just seven hits and failing 10 times with runners on base.
Smith is a 22-year-old rookie who, in putting together a 4-11 record with a 4.55 ERA, has walked an amazing 70 batters in 128 innings.
Thursday, he walked none. Six times, the kid fell behind 3 and 1. Six times, the Padres put the ball in play on his next pitch.
“We wouldn’t let him walk us,” McKeon groused. “We’re the type of club that has to get those walks, but we swung at everything. It’s the same old thing, we got ourselves out.”
The game ended, appropriately, with Marvell Wynne racing around second base as Randy Ready reached out and nailed a Smith fastball to left field with two out in the ninth.
The ball carried, carried . . . and was caught near the top of the wall by a jumping James.
“We were all sure it was out. We were all screaming in the dugout,” Jones said. “I said, ‘At least it’s off the top of the wall.’ But then nothing.”
“A fastball, right down the middle,” Ready moaned. “I’ll be seeing that fastball tonight. I’ll be seeing that fastball all week.”
Padre Notes
From the It-Had-To-Happen Dept., pitcher Eric Show has been hit by a pitch. Well, OK, maybe it wasn’t exactly a pitch, but when Lance McCullers’ lob from the outfield during batting practice Thursday struck an unsuspecting Show in the nose, it sure felt like a pitch. “I knew it didn’t break my nose--I’ve broken my nose three times, so I know what it feels like--but I thought it might have broken some of my teeth,” said Show. He was bloodied enough to require attention from trainer Dick Dent, who stopped the bleeding and soon afterward pronounced Show fit, with no missing teeth. . . . The twin hitting streaks of Tony Gwynn and Roberto Alomar were continued Thursday, both extended to nine games. Gwynn went 2 for 4 with an RBI to increase his batting average during the streak to .410 (16 for 39); Alomar went 1 for 3 to hold his average during the streak at .324 (11 for 34). Seven of Gwynn’s nine streak games have been multiple-hit games, as he has increased his average to .311, or 65 points higher than it was on July 2 (.246). Remember when Atlanta’s Gerald Perry was the National League hitting leader and a full 25 points ahead of Gwynn? When was that, last week? Perry went 1 for 3 Thursday, making him 2 for 14 during this three-game series with the Padres and dropping him to .315. Gwynn always did say his best friends were the Padre pitchers.
In a streak of another ilk, John Kruk--after beginning Thursday 0 for 2--doubled in the 6th inning to break an 0-for-14 slump. After his 0-for-8 performance in Wednesday’s night’s 5-4, 16-inning victory, somebody commented that Kruk looked uncomfortable in his batting stance. “Which one?” asked Kruk. “I used eight of them.” . . . Also from Wednesday night, hero Dave Leiper said his wife, Veronica, called him after watching him on television as he collected the eventual winning hit in the 16th inning. Leiper said she told him, “You looked really stiff up there, really different.” It was Leiper’s first big-league at-bat. “Oh well,” said Leiper, who also earned the victory in relief, “didn’t Andy Warhol say we’d all be famous for 15 minutes?” . . . When Leiper was asked about the nature of the pitch he hit for that RBI single off Braves reliever German Jimenez, he said, “Curveball, no, slider, no, heck, I don’t know.”
