Jeltz Gives a Jolt to Padres, 3-1 : Phillies’ Infielder Hits Rare Home Run to Defeat Terrell

Pitcher Walt Terrell glared at it, as if there was no way that ball could leave the park. Right fielder Jack Clark chased hard after it, nearly running into the right-field wall, as if there was absolutely no way that ball could leave the park.

Philadelphia’s Steve Jeltz had not hit a home run in more than four years and 1,357 at-bats--the longest drought in baseball. He was facing a pitching staff that had not allowed a homer in 70 innings.

So when he lofted that fly ball to right field in the eighth inning of a 1-1 tie here Sunday, no Padre wanted to believe. But this morning, no Padre will be able to forget. Because Jeltz did it. He homered.

After failing to lay down a sacrifice bunt, Jeltz dumped the ball into the Phillies’ bullpen, bringing home two runs and giving the Phillies a 3-1 victory in front of 38,346 at Veterans Stadium.

The fans screamed throughout Jeltz’s trip around the bases, and would not sit down and be quiet until the infielder had stepped out of the dugout and tipped his hat.

Jeltz was so proud, he retrieved the ball and will put it on the next plane bound for Lawrence, Kan., where his mother will place it on a shelf next to the only other home run souvenir he has produced in his five-year career. That one came on Sept. 23, 1984, off the Pittsburgh Pirates and John Tudor.

As for Terrell, he was neither astonished nor proud.

“I guess I just bring out the best in people,” he said. “Maybe he’ll want to say he hit it off somebody else. It might not sound too good against me.”

What the home run eventually sounded was the end of a Padre five-game win streak and Phillies’ four-game losing streak. It also ended the Padres’ first East Coast trip this year at 6-6, a good road record if you play well at home, which the Padres haven’t thus far (7-10).

What the homer also did, besides taking Jeltz off the hook as baseball’s most punchless fighter, was place a certain Padre closer to that same hook. The player now with the longest drought is Minnesota’s Al Newman, who hasn’t hit a homer in 728 at-bats. But directly behind him in second is Padre Tim Flannery, who has had 498 at-bats since his last homer, in 1986.

Said a relieved Jeltz: “My teammates have always kidded me and given me a hard time about it. But I’ve never really listened to them. I’m not that kind of player. I slap the ball. That’s all I do, I slap the ball.”

That is, when he’s not trying to bunt, which is actually how the eighth-inning mess started. With Terrell working on a five-hitter after having retired the last nine hitters, pinch-hitter Curt Ford led off the eighth with a single to right. Ford, batting .229 overall, is four for four against the Padres this year and 19 for 59 (.322) against them lifetime.

“What is it about that little guy?” Manager Jack McKeon asked about the 160-pound Ford. “We can’t get that guy out.”

Up stepped Jeltz, whose job was to bunt Ford to second. With a .208 career average entering this season, it’s usually his job to bunt. But Terrell was throwing the ball too hard and too away. Jeltz tried to bunt and failed and soon the count was two-and-two.

“So we figured, all we’ve given him is fastballs, let’s bust him inside with a slider--that’s Walt’s money pitch,” catcher Mark Parent said. “Except the ball didn’t quite go inside.”

“Looked more like a cut fastball,” said Jeltz, who took an average swing and hit what initially looked like an average fly ball. “It was inside and I just tried to hit it to right field. I never thought . . . “

“Neither did I,” Parent said of the shot that barely cleared the fence above the 330-foot sign. “That ball was barely hit. I thought no way was it going out. It must have gone 331 1/2 feet.”

But that was far enough, both to give the Phillies a 3-1 lead and shut up Jeltz’s teammates.

“It was great--as soon as I got into the dugout, they were all saying, ‘I’ll never mess with you about home runs again,’ ” said Jeltz. “All I wanted to do was get back on the field and get the final three outs and end the game. I just wanted to get us out of there.”

All Terrell wanted to do was get into a fistfight with himself.

“Bad pitch, bad slider, it was terrible, plain and simple,” said Terrell, who hasn’t won in four starts and, despite a 3.05 ERA, is 3-5. “He got his bat on the ball and that was it. It was bad, bad. I was bad.

“I don’t believe in that bit about, ‘We lost the game and I pitched good.’ The heck with that. We lost, I was terrible, period. We played hard, played good defense and I couldn’t keep us in a 1-1 game. I was terrible.”

McKeon preferred to look at it a different way, considering Jeltz’s streak and the fact that he wasn’t even supposed to play Sunday, and was inserted as a last-minute starter at second base only because of Tommy Herr’s sore back.

“I guess we were just destined not to win,” McKeon said.

He could have also been talking about his team’s poor offensive execution against pitcher Bob Sebra, who was just recalled from triple-A Friday and was making his first start of the season.

In eight innings, Sebra allowed only one run on seven hits with eight strikeouts, supporting one dominating theory about the Padres: they do not adapt well to pitchers they have not seen much.

Counting Sunday, five times this year the Padres have faced pitchers they have seen no more than once before. Besides Sebra, whom they have seen just once two years ago, those pitchers are Houston’s Jim Clancy, Atlanta’s Derek Lilliquist, Chicago’s Paul Kilgus and St. Louis’ Ken Hill.

The pattern: Those pitchers are 5-0 against the Padres, holding them to six runs in 38 2/3 innings (1.40 ERA).

“It’s like, guys are asking what some of these pitchers throw, and nobody knows or remembers, and you just go up there hoping to put a bat on the ball,” Parent said.

In two key instances, that’s all the Padres needed against Sebra. After the Padres took a 1-0 lead on Jack Clark’s RBI grounder in the first, Parent led off with a double in the second. All the next hitter needed to do was hit a grounder to get him to third. But Tim Flannery flied out and Parent never scored.

Nearly the same situation occurred later when, after the Phillies had tied it, 1-1 on Dickie Thon’s RBI single in the fourth, Rob Nelson led off the seventh with a single to right. McKeon called for the hit and run to get Nelson in scoring position. And Nelson ran. But Parent missed the pitch and Nelson was thrown out stealing, making him zero for two in attempts this year.

“I’ve got to hit that ball,” Parent said. “That’s why they keep me around, to do the little things.”

Flannery felt the same way: “My failure cost us the game,” he said. “I can do those things in my sleep, that’s how I make my living. I do my job and we win. But I didn’t, and we lose.”

Padre Notes

As expected, sporting a new normal walk and new high top black cleats, outfielder John Kruk came off the 15-day disabled list Sunday, fully recovered from a deep right hip bruise. On May 4, Kruk injured his right hip diving for a line drive off the bat of Chicago’s Andre Dawson. Also as expected, room was made for Kruk when outfielder Jerald Clark was sent to triple-A Las Vegas after going three for 18 (.167) with one error in five starts. The left-handed hitting Kruk, who did not start against right-hander Bob Sebra Sunday, will have to work his way back into the lineup around left-handed hitting Marvell Wynne. Kruk has just a .186 average, and had just two homers and five RBIS in his 23 games before the injury. . . . An official word on the future of national No. 1 draft choice pitcher Andy Benes has been given: “We will leave him at double A (Wichita) for two or three starts before bringing him up to triple A (Las Vegas)--and those aren’t just numbers I’m pulling out of my head,” said Tony Siegle, Padre vice president of player personnel. At Wichita, Benes is 5-1 with an 0.87 ERA and 75 strikeouts in 62 innings.