Clark’s First Homer With Padres Powers Victory Over Reds

Earlier this week, sitting outside in the early afternoon quiet of San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium, Jack Clark talked about the home run.

Not the one against the Dodgers that won a pennant for the St. Louis Cardinals, or the ones that won any number of big games for the San Francisco Giants, but one he held much closer to his heart. His first homer as a Padre. The one he didn’t have yet.

“You’re in the game a long time, you aren’t supposed to feel pressure, but you do,” he was saying. “You come out here and everybody has the expectations for you and no, you aren’t going to hit 60 homers for them. But you’d like to get the first one. You’d like to show them right away that everything is OK.

“You get that first one and then you sit back and go ‘Whew.’ ”

Friday night around 7:20, if you were standing outside San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium, that’s the sound you heard. Whew.

After 10 games and 39 plate appearances as a Padre, Jack ripped.

Fifteen minutes into the first of a three-game series with the Cincinnati Reds, Clark drove a ball 330 feet and over the right-field fence for his first home run as a San Diego Padre. Conveniently, two guys were on base, making it a three-run homer in a four-run first inning that propelled the Padres to a 6-5 victory in front of a paid crowd of 31,894 at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

Feel good Jack?

“It felt good just to hit the ball,” said Clark, who entered hitting .133 with 14 strikeouts in 30 at-bats. “It felt good just to make contact.”

As the Padres broke their two-game losing streak and won the first fall in what will surely be a tough 18-game match against another potential West Division contender, credit also was earned in other places.

Luis Salazar, who has done exactly what Manager Jack McKeon acquired him from Detroit to do, had three hits including the eventual game-cinching homer in the sixth. It was his second homer in two days. Starter Eric Show struggled but lasted seven innings, allowing four runs, staying long enough to get reliever Mark Davis in the game.

And then Davis struggled, allowing an RBI double by Barry Larkin the ninth to make it 6-5 and then walking Chris Sabo to put runners on first and third with two outs and Eric Davis at the plate. Davis swung and missed a curveball, fouled off another curveball, took a fastball high for ball one . . . and then lined a ball directly at Clark for the third out and Davis’ fifth save in five opportunities.

“Here, you want it?” Clark shouted to Davis about 20 minutes after the game, holding the ball up.

“Nah,” Davis said. “But we saved your ball.”

Clark’s shot off Reds’ starter and loser Danny Jackson (1-2) came with Randy Ready on second base after a walk and Tony Gwynn on first after an RBI single. It came on a three-and-one fastball that found its way down the middle.

“Right where it’s supposed to be when a guy wants to hit a homer,” said Jackson, last year’s Cy Young Award runner-up who has allowed 11 first-inning runs in his three starts this season. “I can break anyone out of a slump the way I’m throwing. It doesn’t make any difference who it is.”

The ball cleared the fence and banged off the green wall in front of the stands, never entering the seats. Some Padres thought this poetic justice, considering how the fans recently have booed Clark.

Said Gwynn: “I hope that hit made some people happy, they’ve put enough pressure on him to hit one.”

Clark said he never heard the earlier booing. He only heard the cheering that accompanied Friday’s first at-bat.

“The fans have never bothered me, I’m been thinking so much about hitting, people have had to tell me about the boos,” said Clark, whose homer coincided with his move from fourth to fifth in the batting order. “But I did hear those cheers when I came to the plate.”

He said he’s feeling as if he might hear more cheers, too.

“I’ve been fooling around with a new swing with Amos (Otis, hitting coach) and we may have found something that works,” Clark said. “For the first time tonight, I came to the park and felt like I had a chance. Before, I was lost. I would change stances, grips, everything. I was going backward.

“Tonight for me was a victory. I just hope maybe it’s something that will last.”

For the first time in three starts this season, Show, who has become one of the toughest pitchers in baseball, appeared to let the tough times get to him.

After breezing through the first three innings unmarked, he allowed his first runner in the fourth on Larkin’s double to left. Sabo then doubled to right to score Larkin and bring up Davis.

After a rare visit to the mound by pitching coach Pat Dobson with the count two and two, Show struck out Davis. Same old Show? Not so fast. He worked ahead of Kal Daniels but allowed him to pop an RBI single to right. Three pitches later Todd Benzinger singled to center. Only fly balls by Paul O’Neill and Jeff Reed extracted him from that mess.

Padre Notes

Greg Harris pitched off a mound for six minutes Friday and said his sore left rib-cage muscle, “Isn’t pulling at me anymore. It’s just a dull pain now.” A pitchers’ life being what it is, this means Harris is ready to work again. “They told me I could pitch right away--if they really, really, really needed me,” said Harris, who entering Friday had missed eight days with the injury . . . Johnny Bench, the Hall of Fame catcher who is now a Reds’ television announcer, talked Friday about the young man who is being increasingly compared to him--Padre catcher Benito Santiago. “He is unbelievable,” Bench said. “I love to see ability like that. The way he throws, it’s scary.” Did Bench ever throw like that? “Well, I don’t remember throwing from both knees like that, at least not with the follow-through that he has,” said Bench, generally considered the greatest catcher ever after a 17-year career which ended following the 1983 season. However, Bench does see some of himself in Santiago. “I led the league in passed balls with 18 when I was a rookie,” he remembered with a smile. “And at first I was a little overly aggressive, trying to show off my arm to everybody. But as you gain experience, you learn to be more laid back. Once you get that first Gold Glove (Santiago’s stated 1989 goal), you walk out there and get behind the plate and know everybody is watching you and respecting what you can do. You have more confidence in yourself, and you don’t have to do wild things. You can be more selective.” Bench says that the best judge of Santiago’s ability will never be in how many runners he throws out. “What you have to look at is how many guys are intimidated into not stealing,” he said. “When a team plays the Padres, it’s like, they may have five guys who can steal a base, but suddenly they only have two who can steal a base. That’s the true measure of a great catcher.” . . . In Case You’re Wondering Dept: Outfielder Shane Mack is still hanging around the Padre clubhouse, his right elbow still hurting, but still no treatment planned other than rest. “I just have to think that it will eventually get better,” said Mack, who is on the disabled list and bound for triple-A Las Vegas as soon as he is healthy. “But right now it stinks. The worst pain comes when I swing, That’s why it’s so bad.” Speaking of that swing, remember this time last year? Mack was in the midst of hitting in each of the season’s first 27 games for Las Vegas. He was hustled to the big leagues, hit .217 in 21 straight starts in center field here, and hasn’t been the same since.