Padres, Hurst Are Left Hurting in Philadelphia

Since his arrival in the City of Brotherly Love two days ago, Padre Manager Jack McKeon spent Monday visiting with a group of nuns and Tuesday with a friend who’s a priest.

So, McKeon was asked, does he think his circle of friends can help his team?

“The way we’re going,” McKeon said, “the only way they’re going to help us is if they can hit.”

Indeed, it appears that divine intervention no longer is enough to save this team, which not only lost 4-2 Tuesday night at Veterans Stadium to the lowly Phillies but also lost their $5 million pitcher.

Bruce Hurst left the game with a strained left groin that he apparently suffered while warming up in the fourth inning with the score tied, 1-1. He said he will attempt to see Red Sox physician Arthur Pappas today in Boston.

“The last time I pulled it in ‘86, I was on the disabled list for seven weeks (May 31 to July 18), and I don’t want that again,” Hurst said.

“But last time, I felt a pop. This time, hopefully I caught it in time. Hopefully, it’s just a strain. I can walk straight OK, but it’s the muscle you drive (off the mound) with.

“I just didn’t feel it was worth taking a chance. I don’t know how bad it is, but I don’t think I could pitch right now, and that’s what I’m going on.

“It’s serious enough where I want to see an orthopedist.”

Hurst (12-9), who’s tied for the league lead with eight complete games and ranks second with 199 innings pitched, said there was no doctor available to examine him Tuesday night unless he went to a hospital emergency room.

The Phillies’ doctors were gone for the evening. The Padres’ doctors were back in San Diego. All that was left for Hurst was a bag of ice and some electrical stimulation provided by Padre trainer Dick Dent.

“I’ll just try to get ahold of Pappas tomorrow,” Hurst said Tuesday. “He’s the one who saw it before, and I know him better than anyone else. I just hope I didn’t pull it or tear it.”

The Padres, who had kept their starting rotation intact the longest of any major league team this season, already have lost Eric Show (back surgery) for the remainder of the season and now are faced with the bleak prospect of being left with a rotation of Ed Whitson (15-9), Dennis Rasmussen (6-9), Greg Harris (5-7), Don Schulze (2-1) and Andy Benes (0-2).

It’s hardly a rotation that’s going to strike fear in any lineup, let alone one that’s capable of carrying a team down the pennant stretch. But with the Padres (62-64) falling 10 games behind the Giants with just 36 games remaining, once again there will be more drama concerning outfielder Tony Gwynn’s bid for his fourth batting championship than the battle for third place.

For the first time this season, Gwynn was kept out of the starting lineup. McKeon said he wanted to provide him a mental rest, as much as a physical break of getting off the artificial turf what with his aching left heel.

But there was Gwynn, pacing back and forth in the dugout, carrying his bat on his shoulder. Finally, McKeon could not stand it any longer and in the seventh inning asked Gwynn if he was willing to play.

Gwynn jumped out of the dugout and headed to right field before McKeon had a chance to change his mind. He got up to the plate in the eighth inning and singled to center to advance Benito Santiago from second to third and raise his batting average to a league-high .342.

Gwynn says it’s about three weeks too early to start worrying about winning another batting championship, learning his lesson in 1986 when he worked himself in a frenzy, faltering down the stretch.

“That’s when I woke up every morning, grabbing the paper, saying, ‘What did (Tim) Raines do? What did (Steve) Sax do? I just drove myself nuts,” Gwynn said.

“I know probably nobody believes me, but it’s the truth when I say I’m not worrying about it. Oh, I’ll look to see what Will Clark did the night before, or what Lonnie Smith is doing, but I’m not fanatical about it. Pete Rose once told me, ‘You can’t control what everyone is doing, so control what you do.’

“If I have the chance to win it at the end, I’d love to win it. I’d love to be known as the first guy in the league to win three straight since Stan Musial (1950-1952). And if I don’t do it, I don’t have anyone to blame but myself.

“But there’s no pressure. If I don’t win it, you think anyone’s going to say I can’t hit anymore? You think anyone’s going to say I’m a choker?

“My image isn’t going to change, because I bust my rear end every time I go out there. Sure, I have lapses. Just like I should have run that ground ball out (Monday night). If I did, I would have been on base and scored.

“It’s no excuse. I’m just not perfect. But I can say I do try my hardest every night.”

Unfortunately for McKeon, as he can attest to this season, the manager can’t say the same thing about the rest of this team.

“It’s tough today, I don’t care what the position,” McKeon said. “All anyone cares about is the offense. If a guy hits great, he thinks he has a great year.

“You take the guys we’ve got there, they don’t want to take fly balls or ground balls in the outfield. They just want to get to the batting cage and see how far they can hit the ball.

“You can tell by their numbers where it’s getting them.”

Padre Notes

Former Padre third baseman Bobby Brown, who’s now running a food-service company in Atlantic City, visited Tuesday with the Padres before the game. He grabbed Padre catcher Benito Santiago and said, “What the hell are you doing? You’re not a .240 hitter. Come on, man, I’ve got you on my (rotisserie) team.” . . . Phillie third-base coach Larry Bowa, former manager of the Padres, said of Santiago: “He’s a special kind of kid. He likes to be disciplined, but he also likes to be stroked. . . . I told him I’ve never seen anybody who could be better. Potentially, he can be as good as he wants to be, as good as anybody who ever played. I’ll tell him that to his face now. When I ran by him, I told him, ‘What’s wrong with you, man? You’re better than this.” . . . Santiago allowed his league-leading 12th passed ball of the season in the eighth inning, which helped lead to three Phillie runs and put the game out of reach. The pitch was a fastball that tailed away, pitcher Greg Harris said. Santiago said it was a curveball. “Pretty soon, I would think he’d cut down on those,” Manager Jack McKeon said, sighing. “But it’s something I’ve got to live with, I guess.” . . . While Texas Ranger pitcher Nolan Ryan attained his 5,007th strikeout Tuesday night, the Padre pitching staff picked up three more, managing to keep ahead of Ryan with a combined all-time total of 5,203. . . . Padre pitching coach Pat Dobson, who had 1,301 strikeouts in his career, says he still remember his 1,000th strikeout. It was against Billy Williams of the Cubs, a changeup on a 3-2 pitch. “I wasn’t about to challenge that guy,” Dobson said. . . . The Padres are 36-22 against sub-.500 teams; 26-42 against teams with winning records. . . . The Padres will conclude their three-city, nine-game trip with a 4:35 (PDT) game today. Andy Benes (0-2) and Bruce Ruffin (3-7) are the scheduled starters. The Padres are off Thursday, and then will open a nine-game home stand beginning Friday with the Mets. The Padres play 22 of their final 35 games at home, and 28 games in the state of California.