Clark Has Big Night for Padres : Ex-Giant Sparks 4-2 Victory Over San Francisco

In a funny way, it makes him feel at home, this angry wind and these angry fans and the fog that rolls in so thick during the fifth inning, you’d swear the parking lot was on fire.

“This is a strange, strange place,” Jack Clark said of Candlestick Park early Tuesday afternoon.

But he said it with a smile. And then he spent the night dancing around the joint with a two-run homer, a single, a couple of fine fielding plays, and even a stolen base in leading the Padres out of their three-game losing streak with a 4-2 victory over the San Francisco Giants in front of 11,509.

None of the previous six Padre victories have ended without an appearance by Mark Davis and this one didn’t either. Davis replaced Padre starter and winner Walt Terrell in the ninth after Robby Thompson had opened the inning with a ground single up the middle.

With his best stuff of the season --and even in this young season that’s saying something--Davis struck out Will Clark on a pitch at which Clark swung so hard, he twisted himself into the ground. Then Kevin Mitchell looped a fly ball to right for a certain second out, except Marvell Wynne overran the ball and then dropped it on the foul line for a single.

Up stepped potential winning run Candy Maldonado. But Davis fooled him on a curveball that he rapped to third baseman Luis Salazar, who started a game-ending double play.

Davis now has a six saves in six save opportunities. And Terrell, who allowed just six hits in eight innings, has his first National League victory since September of 1984.

But most of Tuesday’s memories belong to Clark, who entered the game hitting .171 with one homer and eight RBIs.

Said teammate Mark Grant said, “This must have been great for him. To have a nice day against a team that traded him, it feels great. It’s just natural.”

Most of the fans here spent the night booing Clark, just as most of them booed him in the series opener Monday, just as they will probably boo him here for the rest of his natural life.

“Sure, you hear them,” said Clark, who was a mouthy young superstar here with the Giants from 1975-1984. “But that’s just these people. I can’t count how many times guys from the Dodgers would go up in the stands after these people. These people booed Pete Rose.

“You hear them. But you don’t.”

And so he didn’t in striking a line drive shot over the left-field wall on an 0-and-1 pitch from Giants’ starter Rick Reuschel in the fourth inning for his season’s second homer, also scoring Tony Gwynn, who had earlier singled.

The guy who chased down the home run ball was such a Clark fan, he threw the ball back over the fence and on to the field. Clark, who had just given the Padres a 2-0 lead, and was followed two batters later by Benito Santiago’s second homer, never seemed to notice.

“I think he’s beyond hearing or thinking what the fans think,” Davis said.

Or perhaps Clark was trying to make a mental imprint of what he just did. With an earlier single off Reuschel, he just had two hits off a pitcher who previously in his career had held Clark to five hits in 42 at-bats (.119). There’s nobody Reuschel loves to face better. And nobody Clark hates worst.

But that was just the start of a night of milestones.

When Jack Clark reached third base in the second inning after his first steal this season and a throwing error by catcher Terry Kennedy, it was the first time a Padre had reached third base in 22 innings. Clark didn’t score, but what the heck.

Clark’s homer represented the Padres’ first extra-base hit in 28 innings, and their first run of any sort in 24 innings.

And don’t forget Clark’s defense, which he admits is sometimes an easy thing to do. He made a good catch of a Terry Kennedy grounder in the first inning and actually started a double play on a Brett Butler grounder in the sixth, catching Butler’s grounder, stepping on first, and throwing to shortstop Garry Templeton who placed the tag on Ed Jurak.

“That great defense tonight really helped,” said Terrell, now 1-2 with a 3.10 ERA. “Of course, they had better play good defense when I pitch.”

Speaking of pitchers, the other guy, Reuschel, entered the game as 6-foot-3, 230 pound, balding pain in the Padres neck. His off-speed, sinking, thinking kind of pitching had fooled the Padres like no other could. Of 28 decisions against the Padres in his 17-year career, he has won 20 times, with a 2.72 ERA. Last season he beat the Padres four times in five starts with a 2.59 ERA.

Already this year he had beaten the Padres once, opening night, when he held them to three runs on six hits in six innings. He did nearly the same thing Tuesday night. But this time, it seemed the Padres finally figured him out. They hit him harder, waited him out longer. This time, when he left after six innings having allowed three runs on four hits, he was trailing 3-1. And for some reason, he looked less like a Padre killer and more like the third oldest player in the National League.

He set the Padres down 1-2-3 in the first but then allowed a Clark single to left to open the second, just Clark’s eighth hit this year. He then allowed Clark to steal a big lead, and then second base. His first steal equaled his entire number of steals in each of the years from 1984 through 1987. It so shook up Giants’ catcher Kennedy, he bounced the ball into center field and Clark ran to third on the error. Reuschel struck out John Kruk while Clark was stealing, and then struck out Santiago and Flannery on amazingly slow pitches to end the inning with the Padres still scoreless.

Things quickly changed in the third inning, though, with Clark and Santiago’s heroics. And a couple of innings later Reuschel was gone, only to be replaced by rookie Jeff Brantley, who promptly walked Tim Flannery to start the seventh and later allowed an RBI single by Marvel Wynne for the Padres final run.

Padre Notes

A quick look at some of the more fun Padre league rankings entering Tuesday night, none of which should surprise anybody. Yes, they were the worst fielding team in the entire major leagues, with a major league leading 18 errors and a 26th-best fielding percentage of .968. The pitching staff has been hit more consistently than any other in the league, as opposing teams have a .261 batting average. They’ve allowed more homers than any team in baseball--16--or more than one per game. Offensively, they ranked next-to-last in the league in on-base percentage (.290) and have been shut out more than anybody in league (three times). Perhaps to show how much opposing pitchers fear them, a Padre batter has been intentionally walked just once, which is more than only the St. Louis Cardinals, who had yet to have an intentional walk. But not all is terrible. The Padre pitchers have struck out more hitters than any staff in baseball--96, for an average of 6.8 strikeouts per game. And the Padres, who have stolen nine bases, are the only team who has not yet been caught stealing. . . . Last week Cincinnati’s Hall of Fame ex-catcher Johnny Bench noted that the best indication of Benito Santiago’s effectiveness is the number of baserunners who do not attempt to steal against him. “How many guys does he intimidate?” asked Bench. The early returns say, many. In Santiago’s first 12 games, runners attempted to steal just four times. San Francisco’s Brett Butler and Houston’s Gerald Young have been safe, while Santiago threw out the Giants’ Jose Uribe and Atlanta’s Andres Thomas. “I don’t understand why more guys aren’t going on me,” Santiago protested. “All I can do is throw the ball. Why don’t they take more chances? It is crazy.” Right. And Santiago’s amazing 45% success ratio of throwing out runners last year--35 of 77--also was crazy . . . . How bad is Candlestick Park for visiting team? Forget that the visitor’s dugout contains no heat, unlike the home dugout. Forget that the visitors can’t escape to the warmth of their clubhouse because it is not attached to the dugout, unlike the home clubhouse, which is attached. The hardest part for the players is still what happens on the field, as is illustrated in this story by Rick Monday, the Padre broadcaster who played here for many years with the Dodgers and Chicago Cubs. “I was chasing down a fly ball in center field and a gate in the fence blew open and I ran right through it and outside of the fence. When I turned to go back on to the field, the gate blew shut, and I was stuck outside the fence while the ball was rolling around the outfield and the guy was running around the bases. I tell you what, this park is really unfair.”