Padres Losers on the Basepaths

Thursday was not a good day on the bases for the Alomar family.

Roberto Alomar froze on a steal attempt, and third base coach Sandy Alomar sent home three runners who were thrown out at the plate. Both contributed greatly to the Padres’ 6-5 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals.

The bad day began in the first inning, when the Padres’ new-look lineup quickly opened a 3-0 lead off Jose DeLeon. The first five batters reached base, on four singles and a walk, and Frank DiPino was warming up quickly in the bullpen.

But before the Padres could finish off DeLeon, Roberto Alomar tried to steal second with Rob Nelson on third, one out and Benito Santiago at the plate. He would have had the base without a throw but instead stopped halfway.

Seeing that his son was in a rundown, Sandy Alomar sent Nelson home, and Nelson was easily thrown out at the plate. Santiago then struck out, and the Padres’ biggest first inning since they scored four runs April 14 was over.

“It was a straight steal, and he stopped,” Manager Jack McKeon said. “They weren’t going to throw the ball. What goes through a guy’s mind, I don’t know.”

Roberto Alomar knew immediately he had made a mistake.

“I should have gone straight to second base,” he said. “I had to go. I can’t stop. I just thought it was a good pitch to throw me out on, and if he (Tony Pena) had thrown it to second, I was going to go back to first. When he ran at me, I just tried to play around long enough to see if Rob could score. And he didn’t make it. It was my fault.”

Granted the reprieve, DeLeon allowed only four more base-runners until the eighth. One, Garry Templeton, was thrown out trying to steal second, and another, Tim Flannery, was cut down trying to score from second on a single to left by Santiago in the fourth.

The Padres’ final base-running blunder came in the eighth, after they had scored twice to narrow their deficit to 6-5. Carmelo Martinez, after doubling in one run, was thrown out trying to score from second on Nelson’s single to right with one out and Alomar coming to bat.

That killed the final scoring chance for the Padres, who suffered their third consecutive loss. Dan Quisenberry pitched the final 1 2/3 innings to earn his first National League save. DeLeon raised his record to 6-2, becoming the first NL pitcher to win six games.

“It’s easy to second guess,” McKeon said. “When you coach third base in the big leagues, you’ve got to make decisions. He (Alomar) made the decision, and it didn’t work out. Sandy and I talked about it, and he said he should have held him up. What are you going to do?

“We’ve got to take chances and be a little aggressive. One of these days somebody is going to throw one a little off target. They’re not all that good.”

Alomar was defensive about the plays.

“You saw the game, you saw what happened,” he said. “I guess I messed it up. I thought the ball was hit hard enough, and (right fielder Tom) Brunansky hasn’t been throwing well the whole series. It was a perfect throw. What can I do about it?

“You’ve got to take chances. A lot of times they go your way. We just messed up all the way along. I don’t have any excuses. I take the blame. I should have known better. But you can’t go back in the past.”

While McKeon knew that it took a perfect throw to nail Martinez, he also knew that if Martinez had stayed at third, it would have brought Roberto Alomar to the plate with one out and runners on first and third.

“Chances are he’s not going to hit into a double play,” McKeon said. “But he (Sandy Alomar) just had a split-second to make the decision. If he scores it’s a hell of a move.”

McKeon had not elected to use a pinch-runner for Martinez because he thought he might need Luis Salazar to pinch-hit later in the inning.

“When things are going badly, everything is magnified,” Sandy Alomar said. “Nobody is trying to make a mistake. When you try a little too hard, sometimes you are going to make mistakes.”

Other than the indiscretions on the bases, the worst performance of the day was that of starter Eric Show, who couldn’t hold the 3-0 lead and was knocked out in the third inning, his earliest exit of the season.

“The way we started out, everybody was on a high, and then we gave it right back to them in the first inning,” McKeon said. “That was our worst starting performance of the year. Eric wasn’t in tune. When you get a three-run lead, you’ve got make them beat you by hitting.”

Show, who walked four and gave up just two hits, was equally disturbed about his performance.

“When you get a lead like that, you have to hold it, and I didn’t do it,” Show said. “I don’t really know what to say about it. It was a bad exhibition of pitching, that’s all. I didn’t throw strikes, that’s what it amounts to.”

Show (4-4) said he had not been pleased with his performance recently, and the first thing he was likely to change was to throw more between starts.

“I like to throw more, and I think I’m going to do it,” Show said. “I’m going to do what I have to do to get myself back on track, that’s all there is to it. I will do something about it.”

Show didn’t get any help in the first from left fielder Bip Roberts, who said he lost a ground-rule double by Pedro Guerrero--which drove in the Cardinals’ first run--in the sun. A groundout produced the second run, and Brunansky’s RBI double then wiped out the Padres’ lead.

“I should have had Guerrero’s ball,” said Roberts, who was starting his first game of the season in left. “I didn’t see it, and it went over my head.”

Show also could have been helped by his defense in the third, but Templeton kicked a would-be double play ball that put runners on first and second with no outs, rather than having two outs and the bases empty. A walk to Guerrero loaded the bases, and another to Milt Thompson forced in a run and brought Mark Grant in to replace Show.

Brunansky greeted Grant with a sacrifice fly to put the Cardinals in front to stay. They added their last run in the fifth on singles by Terry Pendleton and Guerrero and a double by Thompson.

Padre Notes

Jack McKeon juggled the batting order, moving Tony Gwynn into the leadoff spot for the first time since May 2 of last year. Gwynn became the fifth player the Padres have used in the first spot this season, following Roberto Alomar, Marvell Wynne, John Kruk and Bip Roberts. . . . Alomar, who had been the leadoff hitter for the first two games of the series, was dropped to fifth for the first time . . . Jack Clark (zero for 11 lifetime off Jose DeLeon) was given the day off.