Clark Stops the Pirates in Their Tracks

It wasn’t that Jack Clark hit the ball about 350 feet. It wasn’t that the ball sped over the left-field fence and crashed into a facade and bounced down to where only a stadium employee could find it.

The thing about Clark’s first-inning homer Wednesday was that Pittsburgh left fielder Barry Bonds never moved.

Jack Clark likes it when the outfielder doesn’t move.

“Now, that is nice,” Clark said after turning a baseball into an assault weapon with a first-inning, two-run shot that helped the Padres to a 3-1 victory over the Pirates. “You’re trying to watch the ball and not show anybody up but . . . you notice the outfielder out of the corner of your eye. If he doesn’t move, it’s a little added something.

“The first I remember the outfielder not moving was Pedro Guerrero, when I hit the homer off Tom Niedenfuer (to beat the Dodgers in the 1985 playoffs). Not only did Guerrero not move, he threw his glove down. Now that was nice.”

Clark spoke of the memory matter-of-factly, as if it were something that could happen again. Perhaps it was because the Padres had just finished playing as if it could.

In winning their third consecutive game and improving their league-best road record to 8-4, not only did they get vintage Clark Wednesday, they also saw a nicely aged Bruce Hurst. Without his best stuff, he pitched the team’s (and his) second complete game this season, a seven-hitter with five strikeouts and one walk in front of a paid crowd of 13,350 at Three Rivers Stadium.

Clark and Hurst, Clark and Hurst. Let’s see now, where have we heard those two names mentioned together before?

“Is this what the winter trades were all about?” Clark asked rhetorically. “Yes, this is.”

Added reliever Mark Davis, who didn’t work in a Padre victory for only the second time this season: “This winter after we made those deals, games like this were exactly what I thought about. Hurst throwing a complete game. And Clark taking it deep to win.”

Wednesday was not the first time that second vision has appeared for the Padres. All those football people who spent last weekend talking about impact players, well, this is the definition of an impact player: All four of Clark’s homers this year have broken a tie and given the Padres a lead. Three have led directly to victories.

“That’s why I’m in the lineup, because I’m capable of doing that,” said Clark, who has just a .197 average but leads the team with four homers and 14 RBIs. “It’s like I’ve told Keith Hernandez (New York Met first baseman). Even when he’s not hitting good, he’s dangerous. He may go oh for 10, but that 11th time, when the team is down, he would hit the home run to give his team the lead.

“That’s the kind of player I want to be.”

In the first inning off the same pitcher who no-hit the Padres for eight innings here last season (Doug Drabek), Tony Gwynn reached second base on an error and a steal and then sat back to watch the sparks fly. Drabek got ahead of Clark one-and-two but then threw a curveball that didn’t drop far enough.

“Man picked it right off the ground and just hit the stuff out of it,” Randy Ready observed.

Giving the Padres the only two runs they needed, it was Clark’s 21st homer in this city, more than he has hit in any other city besides former home parks in St. Louis and San Francisco. According to Clark, that’s because he identifies with the work ethic here; he was born in nearby New Brighton, Pa., before moving to California at age 2.

“This place is like me--what you see is what you get,” Clark said. “They are hard-working people here, and I like that mentality. You give a good day’s work, and a little extra is never too much to ask.

“The thing is to accept the bad times and keep pushing and let your teammates see that you are out there.”

And then hit the occasional homer that scares an outfielder stiff.

“Usually an outfielder moves a couple of steps just to make sure,” Gwynn said, shaking his head. “I can’t remember that last time I’ve seen a ball hit like that on this team.”

Just as his Padre teammates could barely remember when the last time Mark Davis was not involved in a victory. Guess what? It was April 10, in Bruce Hurst’s other complete game.

“Before the game, Jack (McKeon) came up to me and said, ‘Hurst is pitching tonight, so we won’t need you,’ ” Davis said. “I said, ‘Great.’ ”

And though Davis did warm up in the ninth as a precautionary measure, for once he got a chance to watch as Hurst used his smarts to fight through mess after mess. He allowed a leadoff double to Barry Bonds in the first inning and got out of it. He allowed a leadoff single to Glenn Wilson in the second and escaped. He allowed three consecutive one-out singles in the fourth, and they only cost one run on an RBI single by Rey Quinones, the shortstop’s first hit in 11 at-bats for the Pirates.

“I was battling all night; I thought I was doing good just to keep us in the game,” said Hurst, who improved to 3-1 and got his ERA below 4.00 (3.55) for the first time this season. “We got the lead, and all I could think of was, ‘Just don’t let them back in it.’ That’s all I was trying to do.”

Padre Notes

Randy Ready played well again Wednesday and will make his fifth consecutive start at third tonight against Pirate left-hander Neal Heaton. None of the three Padre third basemen--Tim Flannery and Luis Salazar are the others--has started more than five in a row. Ready went zero for three Wednesday but bunted Roberto Alomar to third in the ninth to set up the final Padre run, and made a run-saving stop in the field for the second consecutive night. This time it was on a fifth-inning hit by Bobby Bonilla, with R.J. Reynolds running off second. Ready jumped in front of the ball as it landed at his feet and bounced up off his chest. He picked it off the ground and threw Bonilla out at first to end the inning. “One of those in-between hops, I couldn’t do anything but knock it down,” Ready said. . . . The only lineup change for today will be Gary Green’s second start at shortstop. He is replacing Garry Templeton not so much because .257-hitting Templeton needs replacing, but because Green’s family lives in the area, and McKeon likes to do the little things to keep his bench players happy.

Pitcher Dave Leiper closely cut his shaggy reddish-blond hair Tuesday, saying, “I wanted to cut out all the hits and walks.” No wonder he took off so much. Leiper, the most struggling Padre pitcher, entered Tuesday’s game with a 10.80 earned-run average with 10 hits and seven walks in only 6 2/3 innings. Pitching coach Pat Dobson, who had a weekend meeting with Leiper, said his problem can’t be solved by a barber. “He won’t use his curveball, and I can’t understand why,” Dobson said. “I tell him to throw his good breaking ball, and he throws other stuff, and they are waiting on it and hitting it.” Leiper admitted that his pitch selection was suffering and blamed it on a neurological problem. “On the mound, I’m suffering brain cramps,” he said. . . . Outfielder Shane Mack, who had his second cortisone shot at the beginning of this trip, said his elbow is “feeling a lot better,” and hopes to be healthy enough to start his season at triple-A Las Vegas perhaps at soon as next week.. . . Tonight’s starting pitcher, Ed Whitson, who is throwing as well as anyone in the starting rotation--and as well as he has thrown in his career--said that his agent, Tom Reich, has been talking with the Padres since spring training about re-signing him to a contract before the end of the season, when his $970,000 contract expires. “They just told me to work hard and stay healthy, and we’d talk about it later,” said Whitson, who will be 34 in May. “I love it here and want to stay here, and I’ll just keep working and see what happens.” Whitson is 2-2 with a 3.16 ERA, with the Padres scoring a total of one run in his two losses. Whitson has allowed three runs or less in three of his starts with 19 strikeouts and 11 walks. He is one of three Padre pitchers who will be free agents this winter--Mark Davis and Walt Terrell are the others. Of the position players, Tim Flannery, Carmelo Martinez, Luis Salazar, Templeton and Marvell Wynne will be free agents.