Padres Can’t Hold Another Road Lead

The ending was fitting, for the game, for the series, for the trip, for the Padres.

A home run by a light-hitting rookie, Greg Litton, in the ninth sent the game into extra innings. Will Clark finished off the Padres with a two-out, two-run homer in the 12th to give the San Francisco Giants a 3-1 victory Sunday in front of 42,003 at Candlestick Park.

As anyone who has followed the Padres on their trip through the best of the National League West would know, there could have been no more appropriate conclusion.

The loss was the Padres’ sixth in a row and their ninth on the 10-game swing. They return to San Diego for the start of a 12-game home stand Tuesday against Cincinnati, four games under .500 (30-34) for the first time, in fifth place, seven games behind Houston.

By record it is the worst trip of 10 games or more since a 1-9 swing in April of 1980.

By circumstance and events, it has to rate among the most bizarre in the franchise’s 21-year history. And the losing streak is the longest under Manager Jack McKeon.

As McKeon said Saturday after the Padres’ first 1-0 loss of the season: “At least, we haven’t hit somebody with a pitch with the bases loaded in the ninth.” But they have done just about everything else, including letting Houston tie a game in the ninth on a dropped third strike with the bases loaded.

In six of the losses, the Padres had a lead, and in three of those losses, capped by Sunday’s defeat, they had the lead going into the bottom of the ninth only to have the other team tie the score and go on to win in extra innings.

Twice in Houston, the Astros came from behind--by three runs Tuesday and four runs Thursday--to tie the score in the ninth and go on to win in the 10th.

And just as in Houston--when Glenn Davis provided the winning runs with a single Tuesday and a two-run homer Thursday--the Padres’ top reliever, Mark Davis, got beat by the other team’s star.

This time it was Clark, a .342 hitter who would be leading the National League in RBIs (48) if it were not for his teammate, Kevin Mitchell.

Davis had started the inning in place of Greg Harris, who pitched a scoreless 10th and 11th in relief of starter Dennis Rasmussen.

Davis started the inning by getting third baseman Ken Oberkfell to pop to shortstop and striking out center fielder Brett Butler. After second baseman Bobby Thompson beat out a grounder to deep shortstop, Clark stepped up.

In his previous at-bat, he hit Rasmussen’s 2-2 pitch long and hard but just foul down the right field line.

This time, he took Davis’ first pitch and drove the curveball eight rows into the family pavilion seating in right field to give reliever Rich Gossage a victory in his first decision. It was the third consecutive losing appearance by Davis (2-3).

“At least this time I threw strikes,” said Davis, who walked two ninth-inning runs in the first loss in Houston. “We have to just keep our heads up and get them next time. I know I don’t feel like somebody who is whipped.”

Just as frustrating for the Padres as another failure by Davis was how the Giants tied the score.

Rasmussen was three outs from his first shutout since April 19, 1988, until Litton, a rookie third baseman, changed that with one swing.

Litton, who was batting .180 at triple-A Phoenix when he was recalled Monday to replace injured Chris Speier (strained lower back), hit Rasmussen’s 1-0 fastball deep over the left-center field fence.

The home run was his first in 19 major league at-bats. That neutralized the Padres’ lone run that came on Tony Gwynn’s RBI single in the eighth.

Rasmussen (2-5) retired the Giants in order to finish the ninth, but he was lifted for a pinch-hitter in the 10th. Litton’s homer spoiled what statistically was Rasmussen’s best start of the season. He allowed one run and eight hits, struck out four and walked three in nine innings.

He pitched out of jams in the second, sixth and seventh innings when the Giants had runners in scoring position with less than two outs. And he did not allow a run in the first inning for the first time in seven starts and only the second time in his 13 starts.

“(The home run) shouldn’t have mattered,” Rasmussen said. “I guess I have to pitch a shutout every time. That is what I have to do, and I didn’t do it. I didn’t pitch a shutout.”

That was because the Padres were having their own trouble scoring off starter Rick Reuschel, the winningest pitcher in the majors.

Reuschel (11-2) did not allow a Padre past first base until the fifth. And Marvell Wynne was thrown out at the plate in the seventh trying to score from second on a single to left by Benito Santiago.

The Padres finally broke the scoreless tie with a run in the eighth on consecutive one-out singles by Bip Roberts, Tim Flannery and Gwynn.

Gwynn’s hit drove in Roberts from third with the Padres’ first run in 17 innings and only their third of the series.

The hit was Gwynn’s second as he extended his team season-high batting streak to 13 games. Gwynn finished the 10-game trip having hit .548 (23 for 42).

The Padres had their best chance to score in extra innings in the 12th off Gossage, who took over to start the inning from Craig Lefferts.

But with with runners on first and second and one out, Roberts hit a line drive to Oberkfell at third. Oberkfell appeared to mistime his jump, but he was able to catch the ball and double Garry Templeton at second.

That was the kind of series it was. Witness the performance of Jack Clark, who struck out five times. He was hitless in the series in 12 at-bats and is on a zero-for-15 streak.

Quite a contrast to the heroics of Will Clark.

“Will Clark has the prettiest swing in baseball,” Gwynn said. “And the swing he put on that home run was pretty.”