Blanked Padres Look in Mirror, See Little Life Left

The Padre clubhouse emptied quickly and quietly Saturday. Another game, another loss on a trip that is shaping up as the Padres’ worst of the decade.

Most caught the first team bus back to the hotel. Only a few stragglers were left to ponder what has happened over the past 10 weeks to a team that emerged from Arizona with the best spring record in baseball.

Their commentary was as biting as the Padres’ 1-0 loss to the San Francisco Giants in front of 29,116 on a day when the winds were doing their troublesome dance across Candlestick Park.

“Today was weird, ugly, the bench was just dead,” third baseman Tim Flannery said. “It’s so easy to say, ‘The weather is ugly, it’s miserable, the guy is pitching great, we’ll get them tomorrow.’ And I think that is what has happened.”

The result was the Padres’ fifth defeat in a row, extending their longest losing streak and dropping their record on the trip to 1-8. A loss in today’s finale against the Giants would allow the Padres to match their worst extended trip since they went 1-9 on a trip in April, 1980.

“We are not playing with any emotion or enthusiasm, and we haven’t been,” first baseman Jack Clark said. “That is what bothers any manager or player who plays with that intensity.”

Clark said he sensed the problem since joining the team in an off-season deal with the New York Yankees.

“Because (the Padres) came in third place last year, we were going to win the World Series automatically,” he said. “Now reality has set in. Now you look, and what you see is what you get. And it is not what everybody expected.”

The Padres started this trip June 2 in Cincinnati, a season-high four games over .500 and 1 1/2 games out of first place in the National League West. Now they are three games under .500 (30-33) for the first time since they were 18-21 on May 14. They are in fourth place and have fallen more than a half dozen games behind not just one good team, but three.

Part of the blame, Flannery said, rests with an attitude problem among some players.

“I’m not naming names and I’m not pointing fingers,” Flannery said, “but I have said all along we have six guys or so, maybe seven guys in the lineup, who are doing the team unity aspect of scoring runs. Then we get a clog stuck in the lineup. He is not an unselfish batter; it’s just him.

“I don’t know if it is like a cancer that needs to be taken out. Because it can get infectious.”

Flannery cited as an example a recent game in which the Padres came from behind to win.

“I heard someone cussing after the game,” Flannery said. “I looked at somebody and said, ‘I thought we won tonight.’ (The player) wasn’t happy because he didn’t get any hits.”

Manager Jack McKeon said he shares his players’ disappointment. He has concluded that some players are having trouble performing on a team which, despite its recent slump, has been in the race since the start. Some of those same players did well last season after he took over on May 28 with the Padres in fifth place with a 16-30 record, 11 1/2 games behind.

“It’s easy to play on a loser,” McKeon said. “It’s tougher to play on a winner.”

McKeon isn’t ready to identify all these players by name, but earlier in the week, he cited John Kruk and Randy Ready. Both had their best seasons when the Padres finished 1987 with the worst record in the National League. They were struggling until McKeon traded them last week to Philadelphia for Chris James.

McKeon has hinted all week that others who he believes share that style could follow them out of the organization.

“Jack is a good baseball man,” Clark said. “He’ll do whatever he has to do.”

The Padres wasted eight innings of combined two-hit pitching from Ed Whitson and Greg Harris.

Whitson (9-3) had a career-high, seven-game winning streak stopped as he allowed only two hits, two walks and one run in six innings.

The only hits came on Terry Jones’ grounder that bounced off Whitson’s leg in the second for an infield single and Robby Thompson’s third-inning triple. Thompson scored the game’s only run when the next batter, Will Clark, flied to left.

Thompson’s hit was a twisting fly ball that got that caught in the currents and blew away from right fielder Marvell Wynne and into the corner.

“It was mother nature at her best,” Whitson said. “A wind-blown triple down the line that no one could do anything about. Marvell gave it his best shot. It’s just the way our ballclub is going right now.”

The Padres managed eight hits and struck out 10 times against three Giant pitchers. Starter Scott Garrelts (5-1) earned the victory with relief help from Rich Gossage in the seventh and Craig Lefferts, who pitched the final two innings to earn his 11th save. Garrelts left early because of tightness in his elbow.

The shutout was the eighth tossed against the Padres in 63 games, the first by 1-0.

“I have been waiting all year for somebody to start hitting,” McKeon said. “But it’s getting past the time of hope.”

Through spring training, when the Padres were doing so well, McKeon said to anyone who asked that spring training meant nothing. The Padres, apparently, have taken McKeon’s view to heart.

“In spring training we were just tearing the cover off the ball just about every time we were out there,” Whitson said. “Now it’s just one of those things where we just need to relax. Just try to do whatever we can, not more than what we’re capable of doing.”

Whitson had been the one pitcher the generally anemic Padre batters had supported. But even that failed them this time.

Whitson left for a pinch-hitter in the seventh. It was only the second time that the Padres had failed to score for Whitson.

“I’ve always said I’d rather be lucky than good, and today my luck ran out,” Whitson said.

In a streak of eight Whitson starts that began April 27 with an 8-1 victory in Pittsburgh, the Padres scored 50 runs. They scored seven or more runs in five of those games, the only times this season they have scored more than six runs for any pitcher.

The Padres, as has been their style on this trip, squandered their best scoring opportunity. Their best chance against Garrelts came in the first inning after Flannery singled and Tony Gwynn doubled to put runners at second and third. But both runners were stranded as Jack Clark struck out and Wynne grounded to first.

Gwynn remained the only consistent offensive bright spot. He went two for four to extend his club season-high hitting streak to 12 games and raise his average to .355, his highest since he was at .382 on April 12.

Gwynn is batting .568 (21 for 37) on the trip. But the Padres need more than Gwynn’s bat. Flannery said the team needs some kind of spark to bind them together.

“I’m not going to say we need a fight,” he said. “I can’t lean over and take the first pitch in the head and charge the mound. But I’ve thought about it.”

But what Flannery really wants is for the Padres to play with confidence and dedication.

“You can’t be afraid of winning,” he said. “With winning, you have to go one step beyond just showing up.”

Padre Notes

Chris James, who ended a zero-for-38 streak with a single Monday in Houston and had three more hits the next night, is struggling again. He is hitless in his past 13 at-bats and grounded into a double play to end the game Saturday. He is four for 57 since May 23. . . . First baseman Rob Nelson is hitless is 13 at-bats and does not have a hit since May 21.