Padres Are Almost on the Level : After 4-3 Victory, They Can Reach .500 Mark Tonight

What once was simply a mediocre baseball team--OK, a pretty rotten baseball team--has been transformed into something else. Something steady, powerful and mysterious.

Call it a heartbeat.

The Padres pumped on Friday night, winning for the eighth time in nine games by defeating the Montreal Expos, 4-3, in another celebration of smiles and back slaps and somewhat stupefying plays.

Tony Gwynn set up the victory with a catch off his shoelaces. John Kruk set himself up as a right fielder forever with two hits and two RBIs, including the game-winner in the seventh.

Carmelo Martinez set logic on its ear with another home run. And, oh yes, Mark Davis set a club record for a reliever, pitching 2 perfect innings to give him 22 scoreless innings in a row.

In all, a night for the Padres to remember . . . until tonight. In another 4:35 p.m. (PDT) game, the Padres, suddenly 63-64, have a shot to reach the .500 mark for the first time since July 20, 1986.

The importance of the .500 mark? It’s when losers officially cease to be losers.

“Five-hundred, that’s what we’ve all looked forward to,” said Martinez, whose second-inning homer was his fourth in eight at-bats. “That is an important point for this team.”

Added Keith Moreland: “Before you accomplish anything in this game, you’ve got to win more than you lose. That’s when teams get started toward becoming contenders. You aim at .500 before you aim at anything else.”

It is wise for them to take first things first, particularly since they are still in fifth place, 10 games behind the leading Dodgers, two games behind the fourth-place Reds.

The first thing to know about Friday was one of the last things to happen. The situation: seventh inning, Padres leading, 4-3, runners on first and second, two out.

Out came starter Andy Hawkins, in came reliever Davis. And in for scheduled hitter Dave Martinez stepped Tracy Jones, who when he played for Cincinnati this season was walked twice by the Padres with the bases loaded.

Davis threw ball one. Ball two. Ball three. Moreland jogged over from first and told him to slow down. Whatever problems Moreland has had with the club this year -- such as no homers in his last 257 at-bats--when he talks, people listen.

“Remember, I’ve been around Davis so long, I used to catch him,” said Moreland, Davis’ teammate with Philadelphia sometime during the Stone Age. “I know right away when he’s rushing.”

And Davis heard. He stepped off the mound, then threw strike one. And strike two. Then Jones blooped a ball to shallow left center. It was unreachable by the left fielder, Martinez. It was going to be a base hit and two . . .

But along came Gwynn. Racing out of center field, he leaned over and picked the ball out of the air just as it was reaching the artificial turf. He glanced at it resting peacefully in his glove and just kept running, right into the open arms of a cheering dugout.

“I was thinking, ‘Oh man, it’s going to be one of those hits,’ ” Davis said. “And then Tony makes that tremendous catch. The guy has played, what, six games in center field? And he makes a catch like that? Outstanding.”

Davis shook his head. “And then Tony comes running and gives us this look like, ‘Yeah, I should have made that catch.”

Said Gwynn: “Yeah, well, when it was hit I knew I could catch it. With a full count and knowing the placement of the pitch, I anticipated it.”

Could the two-time defending Gold Glove right fielder actually be finding a home in center?

“I can be a Gold Glover anywhere,” Gwynn said matter-of-factly, and then he laughed. “I just need the time to work on it. That catch was good in that it does a lot for my confidence. Fly balls out there are basically easy. Learning how to get the line drives is tough.”

“That catch,” Davis said, “did a lot for my confidence too.”

Sure enough, Davis retired the final six Expo hitters, four on strikeouts, for his 23rd save and a place in the record books ahead of Goose Gossage, who pitched 20 scoreless innings in 1985. The overall top Padre scoreless streak belongs to former ace starter Randy Jones, who threw 30 consecutive scoreless innings in 1980.

“OK, the record is nice, but winning is the main thing,” Davis said, shrugging and looking sheepish for using such a cliche. “Well, all right, maybe I’ll look back on it one day and it will mean more than it does now. But now . . . “

Among other things, what it meant Friday was that Kruk, mired in his worst season since rookie ball (1981), could finally be a hero. His fifth-inning RBI single off Montreal starter John Dopson tied the game, and then his seventh inning RBI single on a 3-and-0 pitch from Dopson won it.

Since being moved to right field and back into the starting lineup last Sunday, Kruk has gone 9 for 16 with a homer and three RBIs. He is actually hitting above .250 (.254) and finally feeling as if there is hope.

“Right field,” Kruk said solemnly, “is my destiny.”

He added: “I figure if Tony Gwynn can hit .370 over there, I can at least hit something decent. It’s got to be the position.”

And also the batting stance. After struggling with new and unusual stances, including eight different ones when he went 0-for-8 on Aug. 10 in Atlanta, Kruk is finally back to his old, wave-the-bat-high stance.

“Everybody kept telling me to go back to it . . . but it took a long time to sink in,” Kruk said with a smile. “Tim Flannery kept telling me to go with what got me here, and finally I decided to listen to my elders.”

Kruk also thinks his new and definitely unusual batting spot--leadoff--has helped.

“I no longer have that cleanup hitter mentality, that caveman mentality-- hit ball far, hit ball far ,” he said. “Hitting the ball far doesn’t always work. I’ve learned to be patient. I’m taking what I get.”

What he got Friday was a victory for Hawkins, who allowed three runs in 6 innings to improve to 12-10. And perhaps more than anything, he got redemption for Hawkins’ catcher, Benito Santiago.

Santiago, well, stunk. He threw two balls away in the first inning for errors that led to two runs. He went 0 for 4 with two strikeouts and a double-play grounder. To finish it off, he dropped the final out of the game--a strikeout of Nelson Santovenia--and needed to tag him to finish it.

“Garbage game, garbage game, the worst ever, I was terrible,” Santiago said, and he then beamed. “But hey man, we won. I can take it.”

Padre Notes

The Padres were given a break Friday when Montreal’s Tim Raines was forced out for at least four games after receiving a cortisone shot in his left shoulder. The Expo outfielder has had a sore shoulder since July 28, when he hurt it sliding into second base and sliding through left field to make a catch in St. Louis. He will miss this series with the Padres plus one more game--at least. “If it doesn’t get any better, I won’t play the rest of the year,” said Raines, who is hitting .273 with 12 homers and 46 RBIs and 32 stolen bases. He was hitting just .250 against the Padres this season but was .358 career against Friday’s starter Andy Hawkins and .296 against Sunday’s starter Ed Whitson. Appearing instead in left field Friday was Otis Nixon, who was hitting just .223. Raines will be a free agent this season, but it appears the Expos will sign him--they are closing in on a three-year, $6.5 million deal. If not, look for the Padres, who failed at the last minute to sign him in the spring of 1987, to approach him again. . . . The Expos celebrated Manager Buck Rodgers’ 50th birthday, complete with birthday banners and pregame song. One problem. His 50th birthday was 10 days earlier, on Aug. 16. Turns out one of the Expos’ major sponsors is Labatt’s “50” Beer. The Expos were on the road Aug. 16 and could not turn down an opportunity to keep an advertiser happy. Of turning 50, Rodgers said, “It now takes me all night to do what I used to be able do all night.” . . . A 90-minute drive this weekend will place Padre minor-league buffs smack in the middle of a pennant race featuring some of the organization’s top young Padre talent. Tonight and Sunday night at the Riverside Sports Complex. the class-A Riverside Red Wave will be playing their final two home games. They have a 3 1/2-game lead in the California League Southern Division with six games total remaining. Tonight at 7:05 against San Bernardino, they will pitch Ricky Bones, 14-6 with a 3.61 ERA. Sunday at 6:05 p.m., also against San Bernardino, they will start either former San Diego State player Rich Holsman (8-6, 2.25 ERA) or Steve Loubier (7-6, 4.23 ERA). Besides a couple of good arms, Riverside features the organization’s best third base prospect in Dave Hollins (.312, 89 RBIs) and one of its top outfield prospects in Warren Newson (.300, 21 homers, 86 RBIs). They also have the California League Player of the Year, Paul Faries, hitting .319 with 72 RBIs and 61 stolen bases. He’d be a top prospect, except he’s a second baseman, the same as Padre rookie Roberto Alomar. The Riverside park is located at 1000 Blaine St.