One Error Is 1 Too Many for Padres : Collision of Gwynn and Wynne Leads to 7-3 Victory for Cubs

It was just another one of those “I’ve got it . . . no, you’ve got it . . . no, I’ve got it” afternoons with the Padres.

After surviving six errors to defeat the Cubs here Saturday night, the Padres were burned by just one on Sunday, losing, 7-3, in a game that was over as quickly as you can say “Heads up.”

Second inning, score tied 2-2, two Cubs on base but two out. Chicago’s Ryne Sandberg apparently ends the inning with a drifting fly ball to center field. Or is that left field? Padre outfielders Tony Gwynn and Marvell Wynne, two polite sorts who normally stay out of each other’s business, couldn’t agree.

Gwynn, the center fielder who has veto power over every ball hit into the outfield, ran toward left field with his eyes fixed only on the ball. It was an easy catch and the end of an inning.

“I’m shouting, ‘I’ve got it, I’ve got it,’ ” Gwynn explained.

With one exception, those three words are usually sufficient when claiming a fly ball most anywhere in the English-speaking world.

The exception is, when somebody is within 10 feet shouting the same three words.

Enter Wynne, in left field as a starter for the first time in eight games. He acted as if it was his ball and, according to Gwynn, “Marvell said he was also shouting, ‘I got it, I got it.’ ”

Gwynn has to take Wynne’s word for it, because Gwynn never heard him. Never saw him either. And Wynne obviously didn’t see Gwynn. As the ball hung up in the cool air, it was one of those plays in which everyone in the park knows there will be a collision--except the two unfortunates who are about to collide.

The ball and Wynne reached the web of Gwynn’s glove at precisely the same time. Wynne, being a few pounds heavier than the ball, won. He barreled into Gwynn’s glove and knocked the ball down to the grass and by the time they had this thing figured out, Sandberg was on third base and two runs had scored and the Cubs never trailed again.

And Gwynn still hasn’t seen Wynne.

“I never knew he was coming,” Gwynn said. “I was so far in center field when the ball was hit, I couldn’t look at him, I had to keep concentrating on the ball.

“Then I felt something hit me . . . but I still thought I had the ball. Then I looked down and man, it wasn’t there.”

Wynne, who has family in Chicago, left the clubhouse quickly afterward and was unavailable for comment. But the fact that he was given a three-base error, and the fact that those two runs stood up for the rest of the afternoon, spoke for themselves.

“You never know what a difference that made,” Manager Jack McKeon said. “That out is made, you’ve still got a 2-2 game, and who knows?”

Suddenly trailing and frustrated, the Padres turned Cub starter Scott Sanderson into Rick Sutcliffe, only touching Sanderson for one run on three hits in Sanderson’s five innings of work after the error.

The error didn’t do much for Padre starter Eric Show’s karma either. Just when it looked as if he would be out of the inning safely, he was knocked silly by the two-run punch and wound up allowing two more runs two innings later, one of them on a rare wild pitch, to finish with his worst start of the year (four innings, four earned runs).

“The mistakes I made today were ridiculous,” said Show, who allowed, among other things, Sanderson’s first base hit since 1987 and Mitch Webster’s first hit in his last 30 at-bats, a grounder that bounced off the resin bag behind the mound for a single.

“I feel I’m at the stage where I should overcome those things,” added Show, 4-2 with a 3.79 ERA. “But today it was like, I was standing on the mound saying, ‘What the heck is going on?’ And it had nothing to do with the error. It was all my fault. I handed them the game.”

All told, in front of 28,735 jeerers at Wrigley Field, it wasn’t a pretty way to end a pretty good trip. The Padres still flew home Sunday night with an 8-5 trip record, their most wins on a trip since 1985. But they have lost two of their last three games, and could have easily lost all three because they committed those six errors in the victory.

“Here’s a team people are picking to win a world championship, and we just take two of three from them,” Cub Manager Don Zimmer said energetically.

Admitted Gwynn: “You like to have a nice flight home, you like to end a trip with a win. If you can only win one out of three games in a town, you always like it to be the last one, so you can go home thinking and talking about it.”

But the Padres, who have ended April 14-12 and in second place, one game behind West Division-leading Cincinnati, are still in good shape, right?

Gwynn paused. “Yeah. I hope so.”

The worries center around the hitting and fielding, which if nothing else is a tribute to the work of reliever Mark Davis and the starting pitching staff.

The Padres batted just .224 on the trip, scoring just 44 runs, or 3.4 runs per game. Then there was the trip’s fielding--committing 15 errors in 13 games will not win as much as it will embarrass.

“But look at it--even with all that, we still had a good trip and have a pretty decent record,” McKeon said. “That should show that when everything comes around, we’ll be OK.”

Jack Clark, who was rested Sunday, agreed. “Look how we’re not letting the close games slip away (7-0 in one-run games, best in the National League),” he said. “We could easily be five or six games under .500. Until we get rolling, we have to hold on. But that’s OK, because we’re holding on.”

With the National League East’s top three teams on their agenda in the next couple of weeks--St. Louis, New York Mets and Montreal--their grip will have to tighten.

“We had a great trip,” Clark said. “But coming up, we’re going to have to play better. And we know it.”

Padre Notes

Roberto Alomar was rested Sunday, missing his first start of the season and leaving Tony Gwynn as the only Padre to start in all 26 games thus far. Alomar made the first pinch-hit appearance of his career in the seventh inning and flied out against Scott Sanderson to end the inning with a runner on first. The reason Alomar was finally benched was obvious--he had an horrendous trip, during which he batted .212 (11 for 52) with six errors in 14 games, giving him 11 errors overall. Late Saturday, after committing three errors in the Padres 5-4 win here, Alomar said, “I’m just not going to worry about it anymore, man. I’m just going to play ball and not think about it. That’s the only way I can handle it. I get a lot of errors because I cover a lot of ground, so I’m just going to play my game and put it out of my mind.” Alomar is expected back in the lineup today against St. Louis.

Jack Clark doesn’t sound very excited about meeting his old teammates from St. Louis today for the first time since leaving them to join the New York Yankees in the winter of 1987. “I’m looking forward to getting it over with,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of old friends over there, it will be nice to see them . . . but as far as extra energy or juice is concerned, nah, I just want to win the game. It will be just another one of those distractions that we have to get through before we can get on with our season.”