McCullers Is Again Stopper, and So May Go

PHILADELPHIA — Look quick. Padre reliever Lance McCullers threw three more scoreless innings Friday against the Philadelphia Phillies. Threw changeups with eyes, fastballs with voices.

He extracted starter Jimmy Jones from a messy game at Veterans Stadium and cleaned up. He held the Phillies to two singles from the sixth through the eighth innings before being lifted for a pinch hitter and letting Mark Davis finish with a save in a 7-4 victory.

Look quick. Lance McCullers has allowed one earned run in nearly two months--since July 3--in a span covering 28 innings. It is streak topped only by Davis, who hasn’t allowed an earned run since July 16, a span covering 26 innings.

Look quick, because if Lance McCullers keeps pitching like this, he’s history.

Think about it. A club needs two stoppers the way your house needs two roofs, right? What would a Lance McCullers, sold as a stopper, command on the open market?

With every good McCullers performance, Padre management is thinking about it.

“It’s great to have a one-two punch like that--but the important thing is to have the one punch,” Manager Jack McKeon said afterward. “You can get somebody else to pick up the slack. I wouldn’t like to move anybody, but we may have to to get the hitter we need.”

And no, they would not move Mark Davis.

“There’s only one untouchable in the bullpen,” pitching coach Pat Dobson said after Davis earned his 25th save with about a three-minute ninth inning. “And that’s the guy who finished this game. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out.

“There’s a lot of clubs out there that would like Lance as their stopper. I bet a lot of them would just love him; they’re probably calling Jack right now.”

And while the Padres would love to keep him, any hitter will tell you that two stopper-type pitchers is an indulgence.

“It’s definitely a luxury having both of them,” Tony Gwynn said. “Shoot, we’d be lucky to have just one of them.”

Just as the sorry Phillies were unlucky enough Friday to face both. Entering the sixth, the game was even enough, the Phillies trailing, 5-4, but having collected six hits against a struggling Jones.

When rookie Ron Jones, who earlier had hit a two-run homer, led off the inning with an infield single, out came Jimmy Jones and in came McCullers.

Juan Samuel greeted him with a grounder down the third base line, and Randy Ready threw late to second. Runners on first and second, none out.

Earlier this year, McCullers would have folded. The Padres have the stats to prove it.

But in this situation, he struck out Lance Parrish on a changeup. He then retired pinch-hitter Von Hayes, just off the disabled list, on a line drive to right and stranded both runners by getting pinch-hitter Greg Gross on a grounder. McCullers is right-handed, and both pinch-hitters batted left-handed.

McCullers finished with two more quick innings, facing the minimum six batters, allowing an eighth-inning single to Ricky Jordan but eliminating him on a splendidly fielded double play when Juan Samuel’s grounder was picked off over the middle by shortstop Dickie Thon.

“McCullers has just been outstanding--he’s just out there throwing now, using all his pitches, not worrying about being too fine,” Dobson said. “Tell those teams who want him that right now, they are out of luck. Because he’s all ours.”

McCullers smiled and shook his head afterward. He was feeling so good, he wasn’t even mad that he lost a save when Tim Flannery pinch-hit for him in the ninth, with runners on first and second and two out. Flannery’s RBI single gave the Padres their final run.

“I’m never happy coming out, but we were only up two runs, and I’ve batted before and then gone out and given up a tying run,” McCullers said. “I understand what he was doing.”

Just as he understands the possibility of a winter trade, a trade that might have been made last year if he wasn’t counted on to be the Padres’ only stopper.

“It would be great to team with Mark Davis for 10 more years . . . but I think I could go to any team and be their biggest asset out of the bullpen,” McCullers said. “I’ve grown up a lot, and I think there would be teams who would want me.

“I think our team is going to be great, and I’d like to be around for that. But things don’t always work the way you’d like. To get what this team needs, we’re going to have to give somebody up. And I know there are places I could go.”

For now, he is content to go places with the Padres, whose victory pushed them back to within one game of .500 mark the third time on this trip. If reached, it will be the first time they have been at .500 in more than two years.

Losses Friday by Houston and San Francisco also made the fifth-place Padres realize just how close they are not only to .500, but all the way to second place. With 29 games left, they are 11 games behind the first-place Dodgers but just 4 1/2 behind the second-place Astros. After Sunday’s series finale here, the Padres play their final 27 games against the likes of the Dodgers, Astros, San Francisco Giants and Cincinnati Reds, all teams ahead of them.

“If we keep playing like this, we’ll pass somebody, because we’ll be beating them,” McKeon said. “Sooner or later, we’ll have to catch somebody.”

McKeon was asked if it were possible to get to second.

“Second place?” he replied. “It might be possible to get to first place. I won’t say we’ll do it, but it’s possible. We win 12 in a row, we’ll find out how quick it can be possible.”

While overshadowed by the Padre bullpen, the offense banged out 14 hits Friday, giving it 27 in the two games since back-to-back shutouts at the hands of the New York Mets. Seven different Padres had RBIs, while the hitting star was once again Gwynn, and not just because he was one of four Padres with two hits.

Gwynn’s two hits put him within seven of passing Dave Winfield as the Padres’ all-time leader. Winfield has 1,134 hits.

Padre Notes

After his pinch-hit RBI single in the ninth, his sixth in his past nine appearances as a pinch-hitter, you’d think Tim Flannery would be happy. He wasn’t. Afterward, he said that the uncertainty over his future “is finally starting to work on me. (Thursday) night I started thinking about it, and it started getting to me. It’s really wearing me out.” Flannery, whose guaranteed contract expires after the season, will return to the Padres only if the club picks up a $400,000 option. With President Chub Feeney not making any decisions, even on his own future, until later this month, Flannery can get no hint about what the club is planning to do. But he said he received a worrisome omen in Montreal when Manager Jack McKeon promised Flannery in a closed-door meeting that if he wasn’t re-signed by the Padres, McKeon would try to trade him to another club so he could play one more season and accrue 10 years in the big leagues. “That’s what he told me,’ Flannery said, “That got me thinking. That got me a little worried. And the problem is, I can’t get anybody to tell me what’s going on. Jack doesn’t know his future, I don’t think even Chub knows his future. Nobody knows what happening.” Flannery’s daughter, Virginia Lynn, celebrated her first birthday Thursday. Flannery said that if he is traded, he just hopes he can go home and throw her a party first. “I just pray I can get on a plane and go home with the other guys,” he said. “But I don’t know what’s going on.” Flannery must not be that worried. With his pinch hit, he is now batting .286, second highest average on the club, albeit with fewer at-bats (112) than all but Mark Parent (86). . . . The Padre clubhouse was abuzz with talk of an upcoming trade Friday, although nobody was admitting knowledge of any names. “Something’s going on here, you stay in the game long enough and you can sense it,” one veteran said. . . . Jimmy Jones’ fifth-inning balk was, amazingly, the club’s first since July 17. With 15 balks, they have fewer than all but one team--the Phillies, who have 13. . . . Benito Santiago’s pickoff of Chris James at first base in the first inning was his eighth of the season and the third such play while a runner was on first. . . . Dick Freeman, Padre executive vice president, joined the team with new ticket director Bill Adams in Philadelphia Friday on a fact-finding tour of the Phillies ticket operation.