Padres’ Loss to Cubs Tests McKeon’s Patience

The first thing to disappear was their hitting. Then it was their fielding. Now it’s their heads, which on Thursday led Jack McKeon to issue a warning.

The next thing vanishing on these Padres is going to be their manager’s sufferance.

“My patience is wearing thin,” said McKeon after the Padres lost, 4-0, to the Chicago Cubs, their second consecutive loss and third in four games on this home stand. “In maybe a week, maybe a month . . . it could be time for some changes. Some guys on our bench may deserve a chance. Or another alternative is to go out (to other teams) and see what’s out there.

“I’ve been riding it out with these guys . . . but I’m getting tired.”

What put him to sleep Thursday was that, against a career underachiever named Mike Bielecki, the Padres managed just five hits and blew an easy chance to lead before the game was 10 minutes old. Afterward he also was concerned about the loss of another starter to injury--no matter how poorly John Kruk (.186) was hitting.

While attempting a diving catch of Andre Dawson’s line drive in the second inning, Kruk’s 200-pound body crashed into the gravel on the right-field warning track. Dawson ended up with a triple and Kruk ended up in the hospital, Scripps Clinic, where he was held overnight with a strained right shoulder and right hip pointer.

The Padres are worried less about the shoulder than the hip, where Kruk suffered a severe bruise. It’s the sort of injury that keeps a player from running properly and could take a couple of weeks to heal.

If Kruk becomes this year’s first Padre regular to go on the disabled list, the leading candidate to replace him would be Rob Nelson, the left-handed hitting first baseman from triple-A Las Vegas. Entering Thursday night, Nelson was in the midst of a 16-game hitting streak with a .344 average and Pacific Coast League-leading seven homers with 17 RBIs. Nelson could give the Padres left-handed punch off the bench. Or, if McKeon wants him in the starting lineup, first baseman Jack Clark could even move to right field for a game or two.

Kruk joins shortstop Garry Templeton (strained shoulder) and second baseman Roberto Alomar (fat lip) on the sidelines, although look for both to return to the lineup sometime this weekend.

But back to McKeon’s original point. The main problem with the Padres (15-15) is not their bodies but their heads. In trying to swing for homers and stats, they are forgetting to do the little things that move runners and score runs.

McKeon had a word for that type of play after the Padres were shut out for a major league-leading fifth time after just 11 shutouts last season. He called it “selfish.”

Warned McKeon: “If you don’t give a darn about being an unselfish player, you are going to end up like Charlie Finley said. He said if you want to be a hog, you are going to wind up eating manure.

“If these guys want to be selfish, fine. They are going to join me on the bench.”

Although McKeon was referring to little things that have happened all season, he was talking about one Thursday episode in particular. It was the something the Padres couldn’t do . . . and something the Cubs did twice, both times giving them runs.

Bip Roberts led off the Padre first with a triple, and all anybody needed to do was hit a grounder to the right side to score him. But John Kruk struck out. And after Tony Gwynn walked, Jack Clark grounded into a double play.

Then it was the Cubs’ turn. Dawson led off the second with that triple off starter Walt Terrell that Kruk caught and then dropped as he swan-dived to the ground. The next hitter, Mark Grace, hit an easy grounder to second baseman Roberts, and Dawson scored the Cubs’ first run.

In case the Padres weren’t watching, two innings later, the Cubs showed them again. Dawson again led off with a triple, this one on a fly to center field that Gwynn admitted he misplayed as he crashed into the wall underneath it. Grace stepped up and tapped a grounder down the first base line, Dawson scored again, and it was 2-0.

“We get a triple, and all we need is a ground ball to be up, 1-0, but we don’t get it,” McKeon said. “Then look at those guys, two triples and two ground balls, and they are up 2-0.”

McKeon is not mad at Clark, who grounded into another double play and struck out twice in equaling probably his worst game of the year. After all, you don’t get mad at guys who have given you four of your 15 victories with homers. And he’s not mad at Gwynn, who left two runners stranded with a grounder in the sixth and also booted a grounder in center field, leading to the Cubs’ final two runs.

“Clark and Tony can’t carry this club, they need some help,” McKeon said. “They can’t carry it all on their shoulders. They can’t always expect to win on a Clark home run.”

Although he wouldn’t mention names, the stats show that such hitting problems are occuring with Carmelo Martinez (.183 average), Benito Santiago (.217) and the unfortunate Kruk. But enough guys are slumping that Martinez noted, “Jack would have to make a lot of changes.”

Don’t remind McKeon, who was asked if it may be time for his second team meeting of the season.

“It may be time for a lot of things,” he said before picking up the ringing phone on his desk.

Pause.

“Hey fellas, it’s President Reagan,” he said jokingly.

OK, so Reagan is no longer the president. Lately, these Padres haven’t seemed like a pennant contender, either.

Padre Notes

Shane Mack’s sore right elbow has finally been declared healthy, and Mack has been optioned to triple-A Las Vegas. The other Padre minor leaguer who began the season on the disabled list, pitcher Eric Nolte, should be fully recovered from surgery on a perforated ulcer and be pitching for Las Vegas early next week. . . . Roberto Alomar showed up with a fat lower lip Thursday after fouling a ball off it late Wednesday. The impact loosened a tooth and required 10 stitches in the lip. Alomar said he would be fine to play--except the lip prevents him from eating hot foods and therefore has left him weak. “I need to feel strong to play and right now I don’t feel strong,” Alomar said. “Maybe I can be back in a day or two, as soon as I can get something down.” When he returns, look for him to wear a special batting helmet with a shield over his mouth. His Thursday replacement, Bip Roberts, went one for four with a triple and a high relay throw to third that, if on target, might have cut down Andre Dawson attempting a fourth-inning triple. . . . Tony Gwynn admitted he misplayed Dawson’s triple in the fourth--”I could have made the play, I didn’t see the ball off the bat good,” he said. But he noted that there is a bigger problem there. It’s Thursday day games. “Thursday day games here are stupid,” Gwynn said. “Forget the business end of the things. For me, they are just stupid. When the fourth inning comes, that sun is coming right down at you, you can hardly see. I can understand Sunday afternoon games, but this is such a hard park to see in, Thursday games are stupid. But hey, I’m not the schedule-maker.” And if he were? “The way we are playing this year, I’d schedule all our games on the road.”