Padres Finally Get to Play Giant Killers

To suggest that the heat of a pennant race arrived at Candlestick Park Friday night would be an exaggeration. Nothing involving Candlestick relates to heat in any sense.

However, in all fairness to Candlestick, the pennant race which came to visit is merely lukewarm.

What we had was the opening of a three-game series between The Team That Can’t Lose and The Team That Won’t Lose.

For those who have been out of touch with the National League West for the last few weeks, let me identify these teams:

Can’t Lose--The Padres came to San Francisco with absolutely no margin for error because the Giants . . .

Won’t Lose--Not when they were down, 8-0, in Cincinnati a couple of weeks back. Not when they were down, 7-5, in the 13th inning a couple of nights ago. Not when they were going 12 excruciating innings Thursday.

Indeed, though the Padres have veritably been trying to will the Giants to lose from afar, this hometown’s heroes have been pulling win after win out of their earmuffs.

How many times in just the last few weeks have the Padres left the ballpark thinking they have trimmed another game off the Giants’ lead?

“Looked like we’d gained a game is right,” said Tony Gwynn. “But those guys keep bouncing back.”

Though Padre fans will probably relate more to those 25 innings worth of giant Giant wins over Cincinnati Wednesday night and Thursday afternoon, San Francisco’s comeback from that 8-0 deficit at Cincinnati Sept. 4 was probably the one both the Padres and Giants will remember longest.

If you recall, the Padres had done a little miracle-making of their own that day. Jack Clark’s two home runs and seven runs batted in had erased an 8-3 deficit in Atlanta and produced a 10-9 win. They knew they had trimmed a game off the deficit.

No way the Giants could come back.

Even Roger Craig had kissed his regulars good-bye and sent them to the showers.

“I told Will Clark and Terry Kennedy to bat one more time and go on in,” Craig said. “They both hit home runs and then everybody I put in contributed. It was amazing.”

And so it was that the Padres, for all of Jack Clark’s heroics, simply treaded water for another day.

It has made scoreboard-watching a frustrating exercise for the Padres.

“They’ve been playing great,” Craig said, “but we’ve been playing pretty good too.”

The Padres went into the weekend series with 17 wins in their last 21 games, but the Giants had won 11 of their last 15. Instead of taking large bites out of the deficit, the Padres have had to settle for frustratingly modest nibbles.

And then, just on the eve of this series, the Padres slipped from five behind to six behind. The Giants came up with their second straight extra-inning win, and the Padres were blown out by Atlanta, 13-4.

It’s amazing how gigantic the difference is between six out and five out.

But the Padres still came here with a dream.

“It’s not impossible,” Tim Flannery said early in the evening, “but we do have our work cut out for us. We really have nothing to lose if we can pull this off. If we can do it, it will be something people will talk about and never forget. If they don’t do it, it would be one of the all-time fold jobs.”

The pressure, Flannery said, is on the Giants rather than the Padres.

“They know it,” he said, “and we know it.”

Maybe so. No one really expects the Padres to come back and win this thing. A lot of people down in San Diego are hoping, but certainly not expecting.

However, it would be stretching it a bit to suggest that the Giants are feeling a whole lot of pressure. If the Padres are looking at a window of opportunity, it is not much bigger than a porthole. Let the Padres cut the deficit to three and maybe the Giants would start squirming.

Craig, for one, seemed to almost welcome the notion that this is a critical series. It’s almost as if he is thinking it wouldn’t really be right to win a division championship without one.

“The only thing that’s too bad, as much as I love San Diego, is that it boils down to us playing them for the championship,” he said. “But that’s the way it goes in baseball.”

Craig was not being facetious. He lives in San Diego and really does love San Diego. His first managerial job was with the Padres, and he almost returned to the organization between his “retirement” as Detroit’s pitching coach and his “comeback” as the Giants’ manager.

But, really Roger, there is no way this series can be considered crucial for the Giants unless they choose to look at it as the time to dispose of the last pesky obstacle on their path to the post-season.

For the Padres, it is an entirely different story.

What they have is an opportunity, which is more than they could have imagined only a few weeks ago.

“You play all year to get here,” said Flannery. “This is what you go to spring training to work for. A series like this is what you play for.”

Finally, the Giants were no longer an illusion to be chased from afar. For the first time in their incredible run, the Padres do not need to gaze longingly at the scoreboard and hope someone helps them with the Giants. Finally, the Padres have come to a time when they can help only themselves.