Cone Starts Late, Then Finishes Off the Padres

It could be this town. It could be this opponent.

But more than likely it’s just the Padres, who can’t seem to come here and play the New York Mets without letting themselves be ransacked and covered with graffiti.

Last time here, the weekend of May 27-29 to be exact, they lost a manager.

This time, a piece of their minds.

On a rainy night at Shea Stadium Monday, they were soundly beaten by the Mets, 6-0, in a game which included a pregame official protest by Manager Jack McKeon, a postgame protest by pitcher Eric Show, and a fabulous one-hitter by Met pitcher David Cone.

And oh yes, in front of 17,408 in raincoats and screams, it was a coming-out party for the kid voted baseball’s best minor leaguer the past two years, Gregg Jefferies. Some kid. In his second big league start, he homered, doubled and tripled, and afterward at least one Padre called him Superman.

“We’re always OK on this trip,” Tim Flannery said of their current East Coast swing, “if we can survive New York.”

With two games left here this week, New York is winning.

We could dwell on the fact that David Cone--14-3 and the National League earned-run average leader at 2.25--allowed just a double by Tony Gwynn in the fourth. Or we could immediately send up a cheer for infielder Jefferies, who in two games here has gone 5 for 9 with 2 runs batted in.

You, and probably the Dodgers, will probably see much of each come October.

But let’s start with the Padres, and the only chance they had to win this game, which was to make a stink before it started. And oh, McKeon did.

Shortly after 7 p.m., after a day of rain soaked the stadium, the downpour lightened to a drizzle, the tarp was removed and the scheduled starting time was pushed from 7:35 to 7:45.

But at 7:45, Cone, who delayed his warmups to stay out of the drizzle as long as possible, wasn’t ready. So the umpires waited. And the already warm Padres waited.

Finally, 10 minutes later, out came Cone for the first pitch. And up went McKeon’s arms.

“This game,” he told the umpires, “is officially under protest.”

For the record, such a protest will be lodged today with the National League office. It will likely find its way to the wastebasket shortly thereafter.

But here is McKeon’s point:

“Two or three minutes before the game, the umpires told us we weren’t starting because the Mets guys wasn’t ready yet. Now what kind of reason is that?” he asked. “Just because their guy didn’t want to throw in the rain? What if we decided not to come to the field on time, what would they do then? It’s the same thing. It’s not a groundskeeper or mechanical thing, it’s their guy not being ready, and I’m tired of it.”

Now, do you want to know how McKeon really felt?

“(Tonight), I’m going to hold up the game because one of my guys is going to need a shoe repair,” McKeon said. “I’m going to tell the umpires, my guy is going downtown to the shoemaker, one of those repair-while-you-wait places. And he’s going to wait to get his shoes done. And then we’ll start the game.”

Now, guess how Met Manager Davey Johnson really felt.

“Any time there is a rain delay, the game is in the hands of God, and everything else is thrown out,” Johnson said. “Why should my guy warm up in the rain and then have them delay it after he is warm? This is crazy.”

Starter Eric Show, winner of four straight, all complete games, said the delay didn’t hurt him.

But he admitted that “right from the start, I was just terrible.”

And he was. The Mets’ second batter, Jefferies, doubled and scored two batters later on Darryl Strawberry’s single. Two innings later, Jefferies hit his first big league homer, and Strawberry (double) and Gary Carter (single) combined for another run. Two innings later, Keith Hernandez hit his eighth homer of the season.

And those were some of the softest balls hit off Show, who left after five innings, having allowed eight hits and four earned runs. In his past seven decisions against the Mets, he is 0-7. And Monday night he was mad. And for one of the first times this season, it was anger toward himself.

“I had nothing,” Show said. “I flat-out got beat. Most all of them hit the ball hard.

“Let’s be honest, time will tell if this Jefferies kid is good. The kind of garbage I threw up there tonight, I would have liked to try and hit it. I had nothing, nothing.”

And the Mets, who no longer take the Padres for granted after being swept in two games in San Diego last week, were something.

First there was Cone, who completely stifled the Padres this season, going 3-0 and allowing one run in 24 innings for an 0.36 ERA. Even the one hit he allowed Monday was on a good pitch, according to the man who got the hit.

“A great pitch,” Gwynn said of his grounder over first base. “Inside and down, I just one-handed it and nobody was there.”

“A great pitch,” echoed Cone, 25, and in his second full big league season. “But then, a lot of balls they hit were hard, but right at somebody. So I guess it evens out.”

Then there was Jefferies, who has the New York media, and Gwynn, scrambling for metaphors.

“This guy must be Superman,” said Gwynn of the 21-year-old former first-round draft pick (1985) from San Mateo. “He acts like he’s been playing here eight years.”

Other Padres, such as Show, weren’t so enthusiastic.

“Wait till he gets around the league once,” Flannery said. “Then we’ll see what he’s really like.”

Said McKeon: “A good game, but just one night. Anybody can do it in one game. We had a guy (Mark Parent) who hit two homers in one game. Time will tell.”

Gee, fellas. The soft-spoken Jefferies, not quite 6-foot and certainly no thug, didn’t mean anything by it.

“I don’t want anybody to take it personally, I just want to win,” Jefferies said.

Don’t worry about it, kid. This is New York. These are the Padres. It happens.

Padre Notes

Keith Moreland went 0 for 2 Monday to continue his slump. He hasn’t had a homer in his last 264 at-bats, and now has just 10 hits in his last 48 at-bats (.208) to watch his average drop to .266. . . . Stanley Jefferson made a rare start Monday, his first since being formally benched a week ago in San Diego. He took Carmelo Martinez’s place in left field and, lo and behold, went 0 for 4 with only one ball hit out of the infield as his average dropped to .147. In the field, a playable Greg Jefferies’ fly ball bounced off the wall behind Jefferson’s head and rolled off for a triple. . . . Impressive statistics: Of the Mets’ 76 victories, 37 have been comeback wins (49%). And 18 times, they have won games in their final at-bat. . . . Almost as Impressive Stats: Of the Padres’ 64 wins, 26 have been comeback wins (41%). And 10 times they have won in their final at-bat. . . . Lance McCullers’ two scoreless innings in Sunday’s 5-3 win over Montreal gave him a streak of 24 innings over which he has allowed just two runs with 23 strikeouts. But it’s games such as that which have given another pitcher headaches--Ed Whitson. For starter Whitson, who left the game with a 2-1 lead in the seventh inning only to see that lead evaporate one batter later, thanks to a pitch thrown by Mark Davis, it was a repeat of earlier pain. It was the sixth time this year he has left the game leading, and received a loss or no decision. If those games were wins, as Whitson rightfully expected them to be, he would be 17-8, instead of 11-8. “That’s what I call snakebit,” Whitson said Sunday afternoon.