Show, Clark Give Padres 5-2 Victory : Templeton’s Status Is Only Low Point Against Montreal

No matter what the standings will say, sometimes the victory is not as important as the vindication.

Tuesday was one of those times for a couple of Padres who were less excited by their 5-2 victory over the Montreal Expos than by the fact that afterward, for the first time in a couple of weeks, their hands contained none of their hair.

First there was pitcher Eric Show, who aroused the fury of teammates before his last start when he showed up just 45 minutes before being hammered by St. Louis for his fourth consecutive loss.

This time, arriving with others on the team bus, he showed up on time. And stayed late. He held the Expos to one earned run in 7 2/3 innings for his fifth victory this year and 91st as a Padre, one behind Randy Jones’ all-time club record.

Then there was Jack Clark, stuck in a three-for-35 rut without a homer in two weeks, an angry man who stood in the clubhouse late Monday and announced, “I just stink.”

Tuesday, he just slammed. He had an RBI single off starter and loser Brian Holman in the third, and then put the game away with a two-run homer off Holman in the fifth.

“Sometimes you don’t know where to turn or what to do,” Clark said afterward. “You wonder, how long can you wait? That’s what makes tonight a big bonus.”

And from the controversy-a-minute Show?

“You know,” he said softly, “I’m just trying to stay out of trouble.”

Speaking of which, even though they won their second consecutive game Tuesday to pull to within a victory of .500, the Padres did not stay out of trouble.

Shortstop Garry Templeton, who had been the starter for all but five games this year, showed up Tuesday afternoon with a severely swollen left knee. He was scratched from the lineup an hour before the game, had fluid drained from the knee, and will likely remain out for a couple of days in a short-term problem that could have long-term ramifications.

Throughout his 13-year career, the knee has plagued Templeton but rarely com

pletely stopped him. But draining it is a fairly unpleasant procedure, which the knee hasn’t required in what he estimates has been five years.

“It’s the first time in years it had gotten like this,” Templeton said as he hobbled across the clubhouse with the knee heavily wrapped. “I just want to get it taken care now. I should be fine in a couple of days, but I don’t want it to get worse.”

This current trip involves three of the worst cities for Templeton’s knees. The stadiums in St. Louis, Montreal and Philadelphia all contain the hardest sort of artificial turf. And since the trip started in St. Louis May 9, Templeton has gone three for 21 (.143) with three errors, doubling his season total.

But what if it’s not just this trip? If Templeton is out for any length of time, things for the Padres definitely will get worse. They can find somebody to replace his .225 average, and maybe even his leadership. But simply, they have no other everyday shortstop.

Tuesday he was replaced by Luis Salazar, who went one for four with three strikeouts. Because of his less-than-Templeton range and hands, Salazar is not an everyday replacement option, which is not good news because he’s the only other player on the current squad to have played shortstop this year. And even Salazar has only started there twice in 41 games. Opening day backup Gary Green was hitting just .176 with one error when he was sent to the minor leagues May 7, and also does not appear to be an option.

“Who knows, maybe I can play tomorrow,” Templeton said Tuesday night. “But right now, I just don’t know.”

Once Tuesday’s game got started, in front of 12,508 at Olympic Stadium, other things were on the Padres’ minds. Such as Show, who entering the game has allowed 11 earned runs in his last 13 innings, allowed a run on two hits and a walk to the Expos’ first four batters.

With Tim Wallach batting and runners on first and second and Show trailing, 1-0, in both the count and the game, out ran pitching coach Pat Dobson. His words of wisdom, as usual, were selective.

“I told the guy, just back off,” Dobson said. “I told him to quit trying so hard.”

One strike later, Wallach grounded to Salazar to start an inning-ending double play and Show played it cool the rest of the night. Although deep inside, because of his previous troubles, he was boiling.

“I felt it was important for me to do halfway decent because more than one person out there was trying to bury me,” said Show, 5-4 with a 3.95 ERA. “There’s been a lot of misunderstandings about me lately, a lot of things have happened out of my control. . . . I’m trying to please everybody but it’s kind of hard because I don’t know how. So I’m just trying to be a positive force on the team.”

After the Padres took the lead with a couple of runs in the third on Clark’s single and an error by Wallach, and then scored two more in the fifth on Clark’s homer, Show became positively a force.

Holding a 4-2 lead in the fifth, Show loaded the bases with two out on walks to Spike Owen and Tim Raines sandwiched around a single by pinch-hitter Junior Noboa. Up came Tom Foley, who had 11 hits in his last 24 at-bats, including an RBI single in the first.

“This was the game, I knew it was the game,” Show said.

So he threw Foley a called inside strike. Then he fell behind with two quick balls. Then he fooled him on another inside pitch that Foley fouled back.

Then Show did it, for the first time in nearly a month. He threw an important pitch, a hard slider that Foley swung through and missed for strike three, which made Foley so angry he flung his bat and spiked his helmet while Show slapped his glove in jubilation.

“I don’t recall the emotion, it was probably just temporary elation,” Show said later, still playing it cool. “But I can understand it.”

With runners on first and third and two out in the eighth, he gave up the mound to Greg Harris (Mark Davis had thrown 3 1/3 innings Monday night and was unavailable). Dave Martinez hit a line drive to left, but Marvell Wynne chased it down for the third out and Harris retired the Expos 1-2-3 in the ninth to become the first Padre other than Davis to record a save.

All of which made for good memories for Clark, who was gone from the game by then for pinch-runner Bip Roberts.

“I felt better in batting practice today, I felt I had a better edge coming into the game, I felt at least equal with the pitcher, and that’s a good sign,” said Clark, still hitting just .197. “I’ve been getting myself out, the pitchers haven’t always been getting me out, and I can control that.”

Some people on the team have been quietly urging Clark to move his trademark stance closer to the plate. Clark has quietly resisted, and after Tuesday’s success he explained why.

“The thing is, the problem has been my swing, my extension, it’s been so bad I couldn’t have hit those outside pitches no matter where I was standing,” Clark said. “To stand closer is to take the easy way out. My problem is more than that. Hopefully tonight was a start at fixing that problem.”

Padres Notes

Reliever Dave Leiper woke up Monday morning with a stiff left shoulder after pitching 1 1/3 good innings in New York against the Mets on Sunday. He visited a doctor in Montreal Monday and was told the problem could be a form of shoulder bursitis, which affects the joints and can sometimes disable a pitcher for a few weeks. But Leiper, who tested the shoulder with a few pitches in the bullpen Tuesday and still found it stiff, prefers to think that he just slept wrong. “My shoulder has never, ever given me problems, so I’m sure it has to do with how I slept Sunday night,” said Leiper, in his fourth big league season. Leiper has undergone several forms of treatment the last two days and will be available on a day-to-day basis. “Right now it’s a wait-and-see sort of thing,” said Leiper, who lately has been pitching as well as he has all year, having not allowed an earned run in his last five outings covering 7 1/3 innings. . . . The Padres’ national No. 1 pick in 1988, pitcher Andy Benes, appears to be on the verge of making the jump from double-A Wichita to triple-A Las Vegas. Benes, one of the hottest pitchers in the minor leagues, struggled in his latest start Monday night and still allowed no runs in six innings in a 7-1 victory over Shreveport. He walked seven and allowed five hits but improved his record to 5-1 while lowering his ERA to 0.87 with 75 strikeouts in 62 innings. Look for Benes to be moved to Las Vegas within a week. . . That’s My Boy Dept: Padre first base coach Greg Riddoch was initially heartened when his 15-year-old son Raliegh phoned him with news of the recent youth league championship game in Greeley, Colo. Breathlessly, Raliegh told of how with two out in the bottom of the ninth and Raliegh’s team leading by a run, he chased down a fly ball in center field and leaped above the fence to make the catch to save the victory. Riddoch said he congratulated his son but then wondered if the boy didn’t sound funny, like he had a bad cold. “Oh yeah,” Raleigh told his father. “‘When I came down, my nose caught on the fence and I shattered it.” Said Riddoch, whose son required surgery and a hospital stay: “Hey, at least he made the catch.”