Padres Lose Their Cooler, Fall to Pirates

It wasn’t happening for Benito Santiago with baseballs. It wasn’t happening with baseballs for any Padre as they were one out from losing their third consecutive game Friday night in front of 52,521 paying Hat Night customers.

So Santiago figured, maybe he could get a base hit with something else. Maybe, say, a water cooler.

Following his groundout to Pirate starter Bob Walk in the ninth inning, Santiago returned to the dugout, grabbed a big orange container off the bench and flung it.

“I thought, maybe I can put something in play,” he said.

It was that kind of night--shoot, it’s been that kind of week--as the Padres fell, 4-2, to the Pittsburgh Pirates and saw their record fall below the .500 mark (15-16) for the first time since they rushed past that level with four consecutive victories two weeks ago.

One step forward, two steps back. Veteran Walk throws his second consecutive complete game with a six-hitter, while the Padres’ Eric Show loses his second in a row with one bad inning.

Nowhere is the Padre trend of frustration more evident than with their prize catcher Santiago. He threw out another runner attempting to steal--he’s thrown out six of 10 this year, and remains the best in the western world at doing that sort of thing. But he went zero for four at the plate with the kind of free swinging that is going to drive Manager Jack McKeon to give up smoking. He swung at almost every pitch thrown to him, including a fastball from Walk with the bases loaded and none out in the second inning that he popped up to begin the end of the Padres’ only rally.

He swung at so many pitches, he was apparently ordered not to swing at the first pitch from Walk in the ninth, so he didn’t. Three pitches later, he grounded out and showed his frustration with the water cooler bit.

Santiago is now seven for his last 46 (.152) to drop his average to .208 and run his frustration level to .999.

“It’s not like I’m doing it on purpose,” he said. “I’m doing the best I can. It’s not like I’m trying to swing at balls way over my head.

“I’ve got no excuses, I’ve got nothing to explain what is happening. All I can say is, I am doing all I can.”

In case Santiago or any other Padres were forgetting anything, McKeon reminded them Friday in the second team meeting of the season. It lasted about 10 minutes, and while McKeon hasn’t started screaming yet, he is weary of talking about the same old things.

“He just keeps hammering home a point--we’ve got to execute and do the little things,” Tony Gwynn said. “It’s the same old story, and I can only say it so many times.”

Said McKeon: “We get close to breaking something open, and we can’t. Maybe one day, if we wait long enough, we’ll punch one in there and get a big inning. But right now . . . “

Friday, right now was in the second inning, when the Padres scored the first two runs but ultimately lost the game. Jack Clark led off with a walk, a category in which he leads all of baseball with 27. Marvell Wynne singled to right. Carmelo Martinez also walked, loading the bases for Santiago.

Walk is reeling, right? But Santiago swung at the first pitch and fouled it away. He took the next pitch. But then he swung again and popped out to second base.

“I wouldn’t think that was his pitch,” McKeon said.

Up stepped shortstop Garry Templeton, coming off a two-game absence because of a strained right shoulder. There is a reason the Padres lost both of the games he missed, and he showed it on a two-and-one pitch from Walk by driving the ball to the opposite field for a single and two runs. This put runners on first and second with still just one out, and all the Padres needed from pitcher Eric Show was a good sacrifice bunt. They didn’t get one. It was easily fielded by Walk, and Martinez was thrown out at third.

This still left runners on first and second, meaning Roberto Alomar’s ensuing single only loaded the bases, which meant nothing when Luis Salazar swung at a three-and-one pitch and grounded to third to end the inning.

“We need to show patience, we need to make the other guy (Walk) get the ball up,” McKeon said. “By swinging at everything they throw up there, we are getting ourselves out.’

All of which made things rather uncomfortable for starter Show, who, like the other Padre starters, can’t seem to allow more than a couple of runs without leaving with a loss. On Friday, he allowed no earned runs for six of his seven innings. But in one terrible fourth inning, he allowed three runs and the game.

It was the second consecutive shaky start for Show after he had rolled off a four-game mid-April win streak. In seven innings, he allowed seven hits and three earned runs, giving him seven allowed runs in the past 11 innings.

It wasn’t so much what he did Friday, but how he did it. After three innings in which he allowed just three baserunners and no runs, this model of composure and consistency broke down in the fourth. He started by allowing a double to Bobby Bonilla, who was only four for 20 lifetime off Show. But no big deal, because Bonilla, who is starting to heat up with a .370 average in his past 12 games entering Friday, can do that to everybody.

But here’s the rub. After striking out Glenn Wilson and getting ahead one strike to Benny Distefano, Show threw three consecutive balls to walk the second-year guy with the .105 average. Then he threw two consecutive balls to Rey Quinones, a guy with a .211 average. Then Quinones took him deep to right field for his first homer of the year--and sixth, seventh and eighth RBIs.

Discounting the runs, it also didn’t seem like the normal Show because twice while facing Distefano, he had visitors to the mound. The first was Santiago. The second, one pitch later, was pitching coach Pat Dobson, who rarely comes to the mound when a veteran is standing there except to relieve him off the ball.

Padre Notes

John Kruk returned to the Padres Friday after an overnight stay at Scripps Clinic, where doctors monitored his severely bruised right hip. Kruk offered this translation of their prognosis: “They told me I could be hurting for another day, or another week, or for the rest of my life. Shoot, I might even die. Yeah, that’s it, I’ll just die.” Not quite. Kruk is hurting, but not enough so that the Padre will put him on the disabled list. He could indeed return as soon as next week, when the Padres travel to St. Louis to begin a 12-game trip.

“It’s not hurting as bad as (Thursday),” said Kruk, who injured himself diving for an Andre Dawson fly ball that he caught, then dropped. His shoulder was also slightly strained in his collision with the warning track, but he said the only thing bothering him Saturday was the hip. “It still hurts, but at least I can tolerate it,” Kruk said. “When I did it, it was terrible. I didn’t know what was happening, I didn’t know if I caught the ball or what. It hurt so bad, I was dazed.” Kruk said his biggest mistake was chasing down the loose ball and throwing it back to the infield. He held Dawson to a triple, but on an ensuing Mark Grace grounder, Dawson scored. “I don’t even remember throwing the ball, I don’t know how I threw the ball,” he said. “But Walt Terrell (Padre pitcher) told me I should have just laid on the ground, that Dawson ended up scoring anyway.”

The other two injured Padre starters returned to action Friday, with Garry Templeton returning to shortstop after missing two games and Roberto Alomar returning to second base after missing one game. Both games in which either one was missing, the Padres lost.