Triple Play Helps Padres Defeat Astros

This was the game the Padres had been waiting for--all week, all spring, ever since somebody put that crazy notion in their head that they could be pennant contenders.

This was a Padre triple play. Score it Luis Salazar to Roberto Alomar to Jack Clark to Mark Parent to one of the bleaker periods in the history of Houston Astros baserunning.

This was Padre reliever Mark Davis killing a ninth-inning Astro rally with one out and two runners on base. Score it two strikeouts on six straight strikes to end the game.

This was a Padre comeback from a four-run deficit to a former Cy Young award winner, Mike Scott, who was unbeaten against them at home in six years with the Astros. Score it a 5-4 Padre victory that wasn’t so much a victory as a team face lift.

It made eyes raise and mouths drop.

“This,” said pitcher Eric Show late Sunday afternoon, his voice still light with marvel, “was the kind of stuff that has to happen to teams that win championships. There has to be magic . . . and this was magic.”

Tim Flannery, ever more specific, said, “This kind of game is exactly what wins championships. This is just what happened to us in 1984. I would go out fishing that year and fall out of a boat and when I jumped back in, I had a pocketful of fish.”

Yes sir, Sunday afternoon was just like 1984, as the Padres wound up with a pocketful of Bass. That’s Kevin Bass, the Houston outfielder and final out in the sixth triple play in the Padres’ 21-year history, and the first by a visiting team in the Astrodome’s 24-year history.

The triple play occurred in the eighth inning with the Padres having already fought back to lead, 5-4, a comeback which in itself is worthy of a preface.

Show had allowed four runs in the first two innings, including a couple thanks to an Alomar error. Mike Scott was 12-0 with a 1.51 earned-run average against the Padres here, and breezed through the first two innings.

But then Scott was suddenly transformed into human form. He lost his fastball and allowed four runs on five singles in the third inning, with RBIs by Tim Flannery, Tony Gwynn and Jack Clark. Then Scott allowed the eventual winning run in the fifth inning on Alomar’s single and Gwynn’s double, his second RBI of the game.

Show, meanwhile, was enjoying all this--he even started the third-inning rally with a single--and picked up enough momentum to set down the Astros on just three hits from the third through the seventh innings before walking Bass to lead off the eighth. In came Mark Davis, who allowed pinch-hitter Greg Gross to sacrifice Bass to second. But Alomar dropped Davis’ throw at first base for an error to put runners on first and second with none out.

Up stepped Ken Caminiti, who immediately fell behind two strikes. Then he hit a shot down the third-base line. Luis Salazar stepped up, caught it on the first hop, and fired it to second baseman Alomar, forcing Gross. Then Alomar winged it to first baseman Clark, who made a fine scoop to get Caminiti for the double play.

And here’s where the fun started.

“I think, ‘Great, double play,’ and I turn to take the throw from Clark,” pitcher Davis recalled. “But then he winds up and I’m thinking, ‘Oh man, is he going to throw it to me that hard? “‘

But Clark wasn’t aiming for Davis. He was looking over at third base. Bass, for reasons he probably stayed awake Sunday night explaining to himself, was trotting down the third-base line toward home plate. The operative word here is “trot.”

“The guy wasn’t running, he was trotting, and then he kind of stopped,” Clark said. “I’m thinking, ‘What is he doing? Is he trying to deke (fake) me into a throw?’ Or c’mon, does he actually want me to chase him?”

At this same time, catcher Mark Parent also saw Bass, only he had a different idea.

“I’m saying to myself, ‘This is a guy running like he doesn’t know how many outs there are . . . maybe he doesn’t know how many outs there are.”

At third base, Salazar didn’t know what to think so, what the heck, he started screaming.

“I’m yelling ‘home, home, home,’ ” Salazar explained. “I figure Jack might hear me. And maybe Bass hears me too. It sure looks like it, because as soon as I call home, he runs for home.”

So he did, finally streaking the final 30 feet to the plate. Clark threw a ball to the right of Parent, who dived, back-handed it, then dived back across the plate and tagged Bass with his back hand. The Padres in the dugout erupted onto the field in a celebration normally reserved for the conclusion of a game. But there was at least one player who still didn’t know what was happening.

“I didn’t know what happened until it was over with,” Alomar said disconsolately. “I didn’t realize it until it was already finished.”

Parent, the backup catcher, immediately knew it was a triple play, and with good reason.

“No, I’ve never seen one,” he said. “But I’m sure I’ve hit into a few.”

Show and Greg Booker claim they knew it was a triple play . . . before it was a triple play.

“I must admit, we called it before it happened,” Show said. “We both predicted triple play. I guess we willed it.”

“Right,” said a teammate. “There are guys around here who predict a home run for every batter. Yeah, it’s really hard to make predictions when you do it that way.”

If only Bass could will the triple play away. Although he didn’t admit to thinking the inning was over, it seemed as if he nearly tossed his batting helmet to Astro third base coach Matt Galante, and it did seem as if he were walking more toward the dugout than home plate.

“I got too far out and when I realized it, I couldn’t turn back,” Bass said. “It was a stupid play, it was my fault. I take total blame.”

Well, not total blame. The Astros had physical exams Sunday morning and Bass speculated, “Maybe they took too much blood from me.”

A better reason might be that his wife, Elaine, gave birth to a boy Thursday and Bass has been up every night since.

Whatever, one man’s embarrassment turned out to be another team’s gain.

“It was like we won the game on that play,” Gwynn said.

Not quite. Davis, looking for his third save in three opportunities, got back into a jam in the ninth when he allowed a one-out single to Gerald Young, and then Rafael Ramirez reached first on a grounder that bounced off shortstop Garry Templeton’s glove for an error, one of five Sunday for the sloppy Padres.

Up stepped Billy Hatcher. Three curveballs, three strikes, the first one looking, the last two on wild swings.

Up stepped Glenn Davis. Three curveballs, three strikes, one looking, one foul, and the last one on another wild swing.

“I sure wasn’t trying to put the ball down the middle,” said Davis of his pitch selection which, considering scouts say he may have the best curveball of any left-hander in the league, was probably pretty wise. “All I wanted to do, actually, was make every pitch the same.”

And so, after having each of their first five games seem the same--messy--the Padres are coming home 3-3 and showing the promise accorded them by the experts.

“This is the kind of game, in the end, when you look back, this is one which gets you over the hump,” Clark said. “You lose this game, it takes you more than a day to get over it. But you win it . . . “