Ailing Padres Have No Good Defense for Astros and Ryan

The scene down on the Astrodome field Monday night couldn’t have been more unnatural if somebody had suddenly wrenched the roof off this place:

* Tony Gwynn picking up a one-hopper in the outfield and preparing to throw out a runner . . . and not being able to get that little ball out of his hand.

* Andy Hawkins scowling and winding up . . . and not being able to throw that little ball any harder than your grandmother could.

The Padres ended their latest trip at 5-5 Monday with a 7-3 loss to the Houston Astros. The Astros broke a 3-3 tie with a four-run seventh inning. The inning featured both the Gwynn and Hawkins problems.

Afterward, Gwynn said his surgically repaired left index finger is still in great pain every time he is jammed with a pitch and, while it has not effected his hitting, it has effected his two-time Gold Glove fielding. He said for several innings after being jammed, he cannot properly grip the ball.

He said he has been taking an anti-inflammatory drug for the last month-and-a-half and it has helped little, but said he will finish the season with the pain.

“There’s not many games left, so I’m just going to hang with it,” he said while taking partial blame for both Monday’s loss and Saturday’s 1-0 loss here, both because of throwing problems. “I have to learn to adjust. I have to learn to get the job done some other way.”

At the same time, Hawkins said his arm has been “dead for a month.”

He said it was “nothing medical. noting, “It happens every year about this time, just something I have to go through.”

After allowing seven runs in 6 innings Monday in taking his second consecutive loss, he said he is tired and frustrated with it.

“I’ll be fine, I just have to get out of it,” Hawkins said. “As it is now, I’m just surviving.”

If that. In his last six starts, the Padres’ most consistent starter this season has fallen hard. He has won just one of those six starts, lasting just six inning per start with a 5.75 earned-run average.

Where he was once 9-7 with a 2.97 ERA, he is now 10-10 with a 3.58 ERA.

And neither he, nor Gwynn, are getting away with anything.

Cut to Monday’s seventh, against a reeling Astros team that had scored five runs in its previous five games.

Denny Walling, hitting .242 at the time, opened the inning with a sharp single up the middle. Rafael Ramirez then blooped a ball to right field. Gwynn charged, appeared to be preparing for a diving catch, and then stopped at the last minute to grab it on the short hop.

Watching between first and second base, thinking the ball would be caught, Walling was fooled, and could have easily been thrown out at second. Except when Gwynn wound up to throw, he didn’t throw. For an instant he stopped, adjusted his fingers on the ball, and then threw. By then it was too late, Walling was safe, and the Astros rally was on.

“I had gotten jammed my second time up and my finger still wasn’t back to normal,” Gwynn said. “It’s not an excuse, it’s a fact. I couldn’t grip the ball.

“I make the throw, that guy could be out and, who knows, the game is changed. It’s very, very frustrating.”

Now it was Hawkins’ turn. After Craig Biggio bunted the runners to second and third, and Hawkins intentionally walked pinch-hitter Craig Reynolds, up stepped lead-off hitting Gerald Young, 0 for 3 on the day, hitting .253 with just 26 RBIs in 403 at-bats.

Hawkins wanted to put the ball outside. He put it inside. Hitting left-handed, Young poked the ball into right field to score two runs and give the Astros the game.

“I’m just glad I came through in a pressure situation,” admitted Young. ‘I haven’t been doing that enough this year.”

An ensuing two-run single by Terry Puhl off reliever Dave Leiper was the obvious cincher. After all, the inning gave the Astros seven runs, and only six times in 117 games this year have the Padres scored more than seven runs.

Only twice has Hawkins allowed as many as seven runs, but that didn’t make it go down any easier.

“I’ve had no slider, no changeup, not anything,” Hawkins said. “I think I was throwing my fastball in the low 80’s. You do that, it’s dangerous where I’m standing.”

Indeed, before that inning the Astros had scored two runs on a crushed two-run homer by Glenn Davis and a triple to the right field wall by Puhl. They hit Hawkins as hard as he has been hit all summer.

“Well, his fastball was not good today, I’ll tell you that,” catcher Benito Santiago said. “But he hasn’t been throwing bad for a whole month, has he? So he tries to put it on the inside corner and it runs the other way. That happens.”

Pitching coach Pat Dobson agreed that there’s no reason to panic, noting Hawkins only pitched 117 innings last year because of shoulder problems, much less than his current 163 innings total.

“We’re piling a lot of innings on a guy who didn’t do too much last year,” he said. “For a fastball pitcher, that can be a problem. I think if we work on his delivery, that will change. I think we can work through it.”

The Padres were able to work through Nolan Ryan for nine hits in seven innings, and scored early on a couple of RBIs from Gwynn (single, groundout) and an RBI single from Keith Moreland.

But after the third inning, they stranded runners on third base three times, and a runner on second twice.

Padre Notes

Tim Flannery tied a club record Monday night--for all of ten minutes. When Flannery drew a fourth-inning walk off Nolan Ryan, reaching base for an eighth consecutive plate appearance, he appeared to tie the Padre record held by Marvell Wynne (1988), Dave Winfield (1979) and Garry Jestadt (1971). But because on one of those times he reached base via an error, by Astro shortstop Rafael Ramirez Sunday afternoon, Padre officials conferred with baseball’s statisticians, the Elias Sports Bureau in New York, before making any announcement. Elias agreed that reaching base via error is not “in the spirit” of the record, and Flannery’s honor was nixed. It only makes sense, considering when Winfield set the record, he did it with eight base hits in a row. Flannery had five hits during his streak, also using the error, the walk, and a fastball off his back from Houston pitcher Joaquin Andujar. “That’s OK, I’m not going to lose any sleep over it,” Flannery said with a smile. “It’s just like I told Mark Parent the other day. Anytime you are in our role, an extra man, you throw all the numbers out and just have fun.” During the streak, though, Flannery raised his average 33 points, from .227 to .260.