Clark Back on the Job; Padres Win

SAN DIEGO — He stood at home plate Thursday afternoon in San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium, watching the flurry of 12th-inning activity around him and waiting for who-knew-what.

Jack Clark’s in-season vacation had been interrupted, after he had viewed the past 20 innings of baseball from the Padre dugout, attempting to purge from his mind the memory of 10 strikeouts in his past 11 at-bats.

So he stood at home in the late afternoon shadows and waited for something, anything, good to happen.

He took a few swings, a few more stretches, put one foot in the batter’s box and scanned the field.

What he saw was Mark Parent at second and Garry Templeton at first. Cincinnati pitching coach Scott Breeden walked out to the mound and called for right-handed reliever Kent Tekulve to replace Tim Birtsas.

When the preliminaries finally ended, Clark stepped up for his first pinch-hit appearance this season. And he tapped a full-count single to left field, allowing Parent to rumble home from second to give the Padres a 1-0 victory.

It was the second victory in two days for the Padres, and modest though it may be, it takes away some of the sting of a seven-game losing streak that ended Wednesday.

While helping to salve Clark’s psyche, the victory also allowed Bruce Hurst to keep his sanity. Hurst pitched brilliant baseball for 10 innings, allowing eight hits and striking out 10. But he left with a 0-0 score and memories of two other times the Padres failed to come up with a run when he pitched.

Greg Harris (2-2) limited Cincinnati to one hit in two innings for the victory.

But there was no doubt that this day belonged to Jack Clark.

Despite carrying a .217 batting average, a zero-for-20 slump and a major league-leading 77 strikeouts with him as he came up in the 12th, Clark received a partial standing ovation from what was left of a crowd of 20,942. That became a standing roar from fans and Padre players after he won the game. Teammates spilled onto the field as Clark returned to the dugout.

“Everybody on this ballclub is delighted for Jack,” Padre Manager Jack McKeon said. “I think it’s a tremendous lift for him. I tell you, you couldn’t have seen 30 guys more happy for the guy.”

Clark was facing a two-strike count before he had a chance to take the bat off his shoulder. “I thought the first one was low,” Clark said. “The second strike was in a good spot, outside, but I didn’t really want to try to hit it because you can pull the outside pitch into a double play.”

Next, Clark watched three consecutive balls sail by, fully aware that there were two runners on and just one out--not to mention two strikes.

“Even though I have a lot of strikeouts this season, I’d rather strike out in that situation and give one more guy a chance to get a hit there than hit into a double play,” Clark said.

“I think the oh-and-two count was probably the best thing that could have happened to me because it helped me concentrate a little more.”

He indicated that the rest hadn’t hurt, either. McKeon took Clark out of the lineup Wednesday hoping to take some pressure off. He said that Clark also would not start today against Houston right-hander Jim Clancy.

“It was nice to sit back and observe,” Clark said. “That was one of the first times this year that I felt like I was going to get a hit rather than feeling like I had to get a hit.”

Clark said he didn’t hit the pitch, a slider down and away, that hard: “It just hit the right spot.”

Said Tekulve: “It was a good pitch, right where I wanted it. He just hit it. It was the same pitch he’s been striking out on for the last three days.

“The first two strikes were fastballs. After that, I wanted to set him up for the slider, because that’s been getting him out. I did just what I wanted to do. It just didn’t work.”

Then there’s Hurst; a scoreboard reading of “Padres 0” is all too familiar to him. He didn’t get the decision Thursday, remaining 5-5, but didn’t get the loss, either.

“I don’t worry about that stuff,” Hurst said. “How many runs I get . . . I don’t care. Sometimes you have to win, 1-0.”

Hurst reached double figures in strikeouts for the second time this year and 15th time in his career. He struck out six in the first three innings before settling back and letting his fielders do some work.

The results were completely different than his last outing, a 12-2 loss to San Francisco in which he allowed six runs and 10 hits in five innings.

“Dobber (pitching coach Pat Dobson) and I talked between starts about keeping the ball down, and I made a conscious effort today to keep it down and throw strikes,” Hurst said.

Hurst threw 79 strikes and 40 balls Thursday. He needed every strike, because Cincinnati starter Tom Browning was just as tough. Browning went seven innings and held the Padres to three hits. Browning, who shut out the Dodgers, 5-0, in his last start, ran his consecutive scoreless innings streak to 17.

In the first nine innings, no Padre runner advanced beyond second. The Reds, meanwhile, were able to get Rolando Roomes to third in the fifth against Hurst, but he was left there.

Clark’s replacement at first, Rob Nelson, gave the Padres their best chance to score a run when he hit a ball into deep right field in the fourth inning. But Roomes drifted back to the fence and leaped high above the 327-foot marker to steal a home run.

Templeton was the only Padre to have more than one hit. He doubled in the fifth--his third in three games--and singled Parent to second in the 12th.

That set up the game’s two most dramatic events: Clark’s hit and Parent’s sprint home.

Cincinnati left fielder Van Snider looked as if he might catch the 225-pound Parent at the plate, but the throw was about 10 feet up the third-base line and off toward the Red dugout. Parent slid anyway.

“I went out there (to second base during the pitching change) twice to make sure Parent took a good lead,” said Sandy Alomar Jr., the Padres’ third base coach. “My plan was to send him all the way if he got a good lead. Snider played for me in Puerto Rico, so I know he has a very good arm, but the only way I was going to hold Parent up was if Clark hit a bullet right at Snider.

“Once I saw the ball hit, and where Snider was playing--pretty deep--there was no doubt in my mind I’d send Parent. I was running with him to the plate, and I almost beat him there.”

Padre Notes

Catcher Mark Parent raised some eyebrows in the 12th by having a few words with plate umpire Fred Brocklander before slicing a single to right-center field. Benito Santiago had already pinch-hit and was out of the game. “Things got scary in the 12th with Bernie (Parent’s nickname) arguing with the umpire,” Tony Gwynn said. “We would have had to win it there (if Parent had been ejected) because we have no catchers left.” The likely choices to catch in that scenario would have been Luis Salazar or Carmelo Martinez, who were both in the game at the time. . . . Cincinnati outfielder Eric Davis left the game in the ninth inning after aggravating an injury to his right hamstring. He likely will sit out today’s game in San Francisco and return Saturday.

HE LET JACK DO IT Nobody was happier about the winning hit than newest Padre Shawn Abner, who was on deck. Page 11A.