Padres Not Making a Hit With Their Fans : They Lead the Majors in Strikeouts After 13 More in a 3-0 Loss to the Mets

Call it what you want. A fan, a whiff, a big fat K. The Padres are doing it in near-record numbers, and they are being booed for it.

The Padres struck out 13 more times Wednesday night in a 3-0 loss to the New York Mets in front of a surly crowd of 26,766 at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium. It was the Padres’ sixth shutout loss, second worst in baseball, but here’s something worse than that: It was the Met pitching staff’s first shutout since last Sept. 11, a span of 61 games.

The futility clincher: The Padres lead all of baseball with 296 strikeouts in 47 games. This puts them on a pace to strike out 1,018 times, or just a few bad hacks off the club record of 1,164 set in 1970.

Last season--a happier, more relaxed time--they struck out just 892 times.

“This thing with strikeouts is unbelievable,” Rob Nelson said after striking out twice.

“Dumb, dumb,” John Kruk said after striking out twice. “I don’t know if we’re trying to do too much or what. For me, it’s just stupid hitting.”

Padre pitcher Bruce Hurst wasn’t much happier. He threw another decent game Wednesday, allowing just two runs on seven hits over seven innings. He has a decent 3.66 ERA. But he has a 4-3 record and has not won since May 6, mostly because the Padres have averaged 3.3 runs per start, including two shutouts in the 10 games in which Hurst has pitched.

“Hey, it was a 0-0 game, and their guys held them, and I didn’t,” said Hurst, who was beaten with Howard Johnson’s RBI double in the fifth and the first homer of the season by rookie pinch hitter Mark Carreon in the seventh. The Mets scored their final run off reliever Greg Harris on Kevin McReynolds’ fifth homer in the eighth.

“The bats will come,” Hurst said. “I’ve got to do my job.”

It’s just that in doing their jobs, Met pitchers Ron Darling (seven strikeouts) and Rick Aguilera (six) had a little help from Padre hitters.

What’s the big deal about a strikeout? First let Nelson tell you. With runners on first and second in the sixth against Darling, Nelson ended the inning with a strikeout. In an attempt to get something going in the ninth against Aguilera, he struck out. Nelson now has 14 strikeouts in 40 at-bats, one every 2.9 at-bats.

“It’s just a lack of concentration, and it’s terrible,” Nelson said. “You put the ball in play, three things have to happen for them to get you out. They’ve got to field it, throw it and catch it. That’s three chances that they can boot it. When you strike out, you have no chance.”

What’s the big deal about a strikeout? Ask Jack Clark, who had two more Wednesday. Both were in key situations, as they usually are simply because he bats cleanup.

With two out in the first, Tony Gwynn hit an apparent omen, a deep fly to center field that popped free from the outstretched glove of a running Mookie Wilson. A potential great catch turned into a great Padre break, a Gwynn triple. But up stepped Clark, and down stepped Clark with an inning-ending strikeout.

Darling gave Clark trouble again in the fourth, after Gwynn hit a one-out single and moved to second on Darling’s wild pitch. Clark worked the count to three and one but then swung and missed the next two pitches for another strikeout.

All of this misfortunes dropped him into a zero-for-10 funk, which later became zero for 11 when he grounded out with two out and Gwynn on first in the eighth. Clark is now hitting .193 with six homers and 24 RBIs after 47 games.

He is on a pace for 21 homers and 83 RBIs, which would probably please the Padres. And with runners in scoring position, he is still hitting 15 for 49 (.306) with 15 RBIs, good numbers.

But, oh, those strikeouts. He now has 54, which puts him on a pace for an 186-strikeout season, three short of the major league record of 189 set by Bobby Bonds of San Francisco in 1970.

“I am just kind of lost to a certain point,” said a disconsolate Clark afterward. “I’ve never been in this prolonged a slump. I’ve tried everything I know, and I’m still not there. All I can do is keep swinging.”

What’s the big deal about a strikeout? Ask Gwynn who, although he was one of only two Padres (with Roberto Alomar) not to strike out Wednesday, felt the fury of the fans in center field. In the eighth inning, he needed to kick away a smoke bomb that landed near him.

“I just want to play baseball, I don’t want to be a groundskeeper,” Gwynn said. “I didn’t want to get near it. When I went over there I said, ‘What if this thing exploded?’ But I booted it anyway.”

Not only were there bombs Wednesday, there was also a baseball that came dangerously flying out of the stands in the eighth.

“I don’t know that those were our fans or their fans,” Padre Manager Jack McKeon said, noting the large number of Mets fans in attendance. “That stuff doesn’t normally happen at our game.”

Said Gwynn: “A smoke bomb in San Diego? You don’t see that. Not here. Not from our fans. If they were our fans. There was a lot of stuff going on out there, there were a lot of Mets fans, and they were getting rowdy, and our fans were getting rowdy on them.”

Padre Notes

Former Padre pitcher Keith Comstock, now with the club’s triple-A Las Vegas team, has always been known as a prankster. But he recently outdid himself by posing for one of the most unusual baseball cards ever. In his card, which is part of the Las Vegas Stars’ package, Comstock is pictured standing at the mound, arms outstretched, face scrunched up in pain--with a baseball hitting him in the groin area. Yes, this is a real, circulated baseball card. “Don’t laugh, I went to a lot of time and effort to put that together,” Comstock said Wednesday night from Las Vegas. “I had to paste and glue the baseball on to that spot. Then I had to get the photographer to shoot it. He said he would, but he said it probably would never get printed. He was wrong.” Comstock, already somewhat of a cult hero in the Padre clubhouse because he has been released by 10 different teams in five different countries, can now been seen pasted to several Padre lockers. In case you’re wondering, Comstock is having a pretty good season--4-1, 3.21 ERA with team-high six saves entering Wednesday--but says he hopes to be traded by late summer to an organization that would be interested in bringing him to the big leagues. At this point, the Padres are not. . . . The word out of Seattle is that the Mariners are going to do something soon with pitcher Mark Langston. But unless things quickly change, it looks as if that something won’t be with the Padres. Mariner sources say that they no longer will take minor league catcher Sandy Alomar Jr. for Langston. They want starter Eric Show, plus two other starters, which few teams can afford to give up. Seattle is so disinterested in the Padres that nobody from the organization has even told Manager Jack McKeon what they will take.