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Padres Seeing the Painful Truth : Pennant Talk Seems Moot After 7-2 Loss to New York

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Times Staff Writer

The illusion has existed for the past six months. Since the day the Padres set foot in Yuma, Ariz., for spring training, right until their 7-2 loss Wednesday night to the New York Mets, the Padres have told everyone within earshot that they can still win this thing.

Forget the lackluster, mediocre play that has existed the entire season. Forget about their thin pitching staff, which consists of just five pitchers who have had more than a full season’s experience and two who made their major-league debuts last week. Forget about their offense, which has scored the third-fewest runs in the National League and fifth-fewest in the big leagues.

This team is too good, the Padres insisted, to keep playing this poorly.

Well, their cover was blown Wednesday night by the man expected to lead them to the National League West title, Jack Clark.

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It was Clark who was as responsible as anyone for the Padres’ third consecutive defeat, fourth in the past five games. He made two errors, went zero for four and stranded four runners in scoring position.

Batting .238 with 15 homers and 62 RBIs hardly is what the Padres had in mind when they acquired Clark in the off-season.

“But you know what?” Clark said. “We could have a guy hit 40 home runs and a guy win 20 games, and we still could finish in fifth place.

“It’s going to take an awful lot of adjustments for this team to win. It doesn’t matter what kind of talent you have, it’s how you play together. And you can see by our record how we’re doing that.

“You’ve got to have character, and that’s missing. First of all, we’ve got to figure out what kind of team we are, and I don’t think anyone in this room knows that. No one knows. It’s not defined.”

When reminded that the Padres are still within striking distance, nine games behind the division-leading San Francisco Giants, Clark’s reacted as if Al Davis would have a better shot at becoming the NFL commissioner.

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“We’re close, yeah, we’re as close as anybody in the NL West,” he said. “But you put this team in the East, and we’d be up there where the Pirates are.”

The Pirates just so happen to be fifth in the NL East, 18 1/2 games out with a 51-68 record.

“I don’t think you could take our hitting and pitching,” Clark said, “and say this team’s legitimate. If you’re a contender, you’ve got to use your bench. You’ve got to use your bullpen. If you’ve got a great team, you use everyone to win games.

“(Met Manager) Davey Johnson and (Cardinal Manager) Whitey Herzog are very good at it, but we’re not very flexible. Basically, we’re just a right-handed hitting team.”

As Padre Manager Jack McKeon admitted afterwards, this club may be capable of beating a handful of teams by playing careless baseball, but they had better be close to perfect to beat teams such as the Mets.

“You might get by with that with Atlanta,” McKeon said, “but not these guys. They’ll just kill you.”

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It was painfully obvious from the outset that the only way the Padres wouldn’t lose this game was if it were rained out.

And at 8:53 local time, when a storm hit Shea Stadium and sent 36,768 fans under cover, the Padres had a chance. They were trailing, 4-0, but with three outs still needed to make it an official game, home-plate umpire Gary Darling stopped it at the top of the fifth.

The Padres immediately headed to the clubhouse and spent the next hour or so with their hands folded, praying for the rain to continue falling.

Alas, at 9:49, the grounds crew came out to peel off the tarp, and at 10:06, play resumed.

Padre euphoria was over. They were retired quickly in the top of the fifth, watched reliever Don Schulze yield back-to-back homers to Howard Johnson and Darryl Strawberry (his first of two in the game) in the bottom of the inning and went down meekly the rest of the way.

“I actually thought we still had a chance to get to (Met starter Ron) Darling,” Padre center fielder Tony Gwynn said, “but once it became 6-0, I was sure hoping we had that rain-out.”

The tone was set in the first inning. With Roberto Alomar on first, Gwynn hit a ball that carried deep to left field. Gwynn thought it was a homer, but he instead watched in disgust as it caromed high off the wall, leaving the Padres with runners at second and third with one out.

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Oh, well, the Padres figured, they still had Clark coming to the plate and Chris James on deck.

Clark swung and missed the first two pitches. He sent the next pitch to medium-depth left field. Kevin McReynolds caught the ball, and Alomar was off for home.

McReynolds reeled back and fired. The play wasn’t even close. Catcher Gary Carter stood at home with the baseball awaiting Alomar’s arrival.

Double play. End of inning. It might as well have been end of game.

This was just the beginning of the Padres’ frustrations, for Clark in particular.

After striking out leadoff hitter Keith Miller in the bottom of the first, Padre starter Dennis Rasmussen walked Juan Samuel. No problem. Rasmussen caught Samuel breaking too early for second. He threw to Clark at first. Clark threw to Garry Templeton at second.

Oops. The ball sailed past Templeton into center field, allowing Samuel to go to third.

Rasmussen still looked as if he were going to get out of the predicament when he struck out Strawberry on four pitches and got ahead of Kevin McReynolds on an oh-and-two count.

All Rasmussen wanted to do was waste his third pitch. He didn’t mean for it to skip in the dirt, bounce off catcher Benito Santiago’s shin guard and kick up onto the screen. One run was in and Johnson was at second, and on the next pitch, he was home when McReynolds singled to center.

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