Padres, Salazar Kick Away Game to Mets in Ninth, 2-1

The ball hit the grass in front of Luis Salazar’s glove, then bounced off the tip of the glove. Then it spun and hopped and rolled and didn’t stop until it had knocked the Padres into a cold and unfamiliar place.

Last place.

In a fitting end to yet another game of blown chances, Salazar booted rookie Mark Carreon’s double play grounder with the bases loaded and one out in the ninth inning Sunday to allow Keith Hernandez to score from third base and give the New York Mets a 2-1 victory in front of 35,547 at Shea Stadium.

This morning the Padres will slowly climb out of bed and rub their aching hitting, and fielding, and baserunning. Then, when they glance at a newspaper, they will want to rub their eyes.

As the losers of five of six games on this current trip, they have fallen to 18-21 and into last place in the National League West for the first time since the second day this season and for only the fourth time since Jack McKeon took over as manager last May 28.

“Right now, we’ll take a win any way we can get it, any time, any place, any how,” said Jack Clark, who went zero for four and now is in a two-for-28 slide since hitting his last homer May 2 against St. Louis. “Some of these games . . . they are the kind that really hurt because we know we can win them, and don’t.”

Remember that this was the same team that began the season as pennant favorites. The same team that won five of its first eight games to bolt into first place.

But since then, they have won only 13 of 31 and are suddenly four games behind first-place Cincinnati with every other team in the division separating them.

And suddenly, as Sunday’s three hours here would indicate, everything is going wrong. Even when things go right. Especially when things go right.

“It’s the kind of loss,” pitcher Dennis Rasmussen said, “where we’re sitting over here kicking ourselves.”

One kick is needed for the offense, as the Padres had two blown sacrifice bunts that could have led to runs on a day the teams combined to leave 24 men on base.

Another kick is needed for the baserunning, which ended a first-inning rally and then killed a possible game-winning rally in the ninth. Tony Gwynn ended the first inning with the go-ahead run on third base by being thrown out attempting to steal second.

And then there was the bottom of the ninth, an inning requiring not just a kick but a couple of good slaps.

Reliever Dave Leiper, who had escaped a bases-loaded jam in the eighth, allowed a leadoff ground-ball single to Howard Johnson, who just beat shortstop Salazar’s throw to first. Hernandez then ripped a line drive down the right-field line for a double. Johnson was sent home on the hit, but Roberto Alomar took the good relay from right fielder Bip Roberts and threw Johnson out at the plate on a nice diving tag by catcher Mark Parent.

Great play, right? “But it didn’t mean anything,” Parent noted glumly.

How true. With Hernandez on third after the throw, the Padres intentionally walked both Kevin McReynolds and Greg Jefferies to set up a force play at home plate with Carreon hitting. There was also the chance of getting a double play grounder, but because Carreon runs well, McKeon pulled the infield in on the grass, hoping to start any double play with a throw home.

“We had to get the guy at home first,” McKeon said. “We were not thinking about going around the horn on the double play, because it was the guy going home who would have beat us.”

As the Padres and McKeon’s luck would have it, Salazar might have handled the next play easier if he were playing back.

Facing a two-and-two count, Carreon fought off a curveball and bounced it toward Salazar. Funny, but it was just what Salazar, and pitcher Leiper, had hoped for.

“I wanted to get a ground ball, and I wanted it at the shortstop, and that’s what we got,” Leiper said.

Only, it wasn’t what Salazar got. The ball suddenly took a quick hop at Salazar’s feet and bounced off his glove and trickled back toward left field. Hernandez could have scored while running on his hands.

All of which made for a bad ending to an otherwise proficient day for Salazar, who was making his first start at shortstop this year because Garry Templeton needed a rest because of a sore left knee. Before the ninth, Salazar had made only good fielding plays and even knocked in the Padres’ only run with a looping double to left field in the fourth off Mets starter Bob Ojeda.

“I made all the plays . . . but one,” said Salazar. “I can’t explain it. I don’t know how I missed it. It was the easiest ball hit to me all day. It was hit right at me . . . the perfect double play ball. It was the strangest way to make an error.

“I’m still wondering, why do I do that? How does that happen?”

Rationalized McKeon: “Hey, it could have been the ninth inning or the first inning. It was just spinning, he was trying to get the guy at the plate with it, and it kicked off his glove. That stuff happens.”

What happened in the top of the ninth with the score tied 1-1, now that doesn’t always happen. With eventual winner Roger McDowell pitching, Randy Ready led off the ninth by drawing a walk. Given the task of bunting Ready to second, Parent failed miserably. The bunt bounced almost directly to McDowell, who threw to shortstop Kevin Elster for the start of a double play.

Marvell Wynne followed with a single that would have scored the run from second. It was almost a carbon copy of the third inning when, with the Padres trailing, 1-0, Rasmussen faced the same situation with Parent on first. He also bunted terribly, forcing Parent at second. Gwynn followed with a single that would have scored Parent.

“I make the bunt, maybe we win,” Parent said. “I have got to get that bunt down. I’m not executing, none of us are executing.”

The Padres still had a chance to salvage that ninth when, after Wynne’s single, Gwynn followed with a line drive to right to move Wynne to third and bring up Roberts.

But Roberts never got a chance. On a three-and-one fastball, Gwynn took off for second and was thrown out by catcher Barry Lyons, even though Gwynn claimed he was safe, and jumped around second base in front of umpire Jerry Crawford to illustrate that point.

“You never see me jumping like that, so you know I was safe,” Gwynn said. “I slid outside (Elster’s) tag, he never got me.”

But with his run perhaps meaningless anyway, and with two out, why steal in the first place?

“It’s what we’ve been doing all year, it’s been working,” said Gwynn, who entered Sunday as the National League leader with 14 stolen bases, although he had been caught four times. “I figured, they weren’t looking at me, so why not go for it? And I had it beat, too.”

But today all the Padres have is last place. All to themselves. And no answer is the right one.