Cubs Are All Smiles; Hurst Isn’t : Padres: Harkey loses no-hit bid in eighth, but Cubs beat Padres, 3-1. Hurst (0-3) is impressive but loses.

Padre pitcher Bruce Hurst was slowly walking out of the stadium Thursday afternoon when he heard the noise. His head stayed down, but he has been around this game long enough to recognize the sounds of a winner.

Hurst was in no mood to stop for any chit-chat, quickening his pace past the Chicago Cubs’ clubhouse.

Had he bothered to stop, he would have heard the Cubs jubilantly talking about their 3-1 victory over the Padres, ending their six-game losing streak in front of 29,168 at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

He could have listened to starting pitcher Mike Harkey saying that his only regret was the timing of Phil Stephenson’s eighth-inning home run, ruining his no-hitter and knocking him out of the game.

He could have heard Jerome Walton telling reporters about his infield hit that ended Hurst’s shutout in the eighth or Shawon Dunston talking about his home run off Craig Lefferts in the ninth.

He could have even stopped to say goodby to former teammates Marvell Wynne and Luis Salazar.

But the way he figured it, why heap more punishment on himself?

Sure, maybe the Cubs would tell him how well he pitched, just as his teammates and the Padre coaching staff did. Maybe they, too, saw the improvement in his delivery this outing. Maybe they would tell him that he deserved better fate for his finest performance of the season.

But when you’re 0-3, off to the worst start of your major league career, no one can say anything to make you feel any better.

Hurst didn’t even take comfort in the fact that the only hits he allowed through the first seven innings Thursday were a flare to left field by Andre Dawson and a bloop double to center field by Dunston. It didn’t matter to him that he struck out seven batters in the first 4 1/3 innings. And although it was nice that he was shutting out the Cubs, Harkey was doing the same to his team, wasn’t he?

“The bottom line was that I had to keep doing what I was doing, matching those zeroes,” Hurst said, “hoping he was the one who breaks. Well, I was the one who broke today.”

For the fourth time this season, Hurst started a game and left without a victory. He has kept the Padres in the game in each of his starts--even throwing a no-hitter for six innings in the season-opener against the Dodgers--but he again left empty-handed Thursday, allowing six hits and two runs in 7 2/3 innings.

“I’ve got to win the close ones, that’s all there is to it,” Hurst said. “I didn’t pitch well in situations again, and it cost me.”

The Padres, whose up-and-down offense has scored at least seven runs in six games this season and two or fewer runs in five games, have been consistent only with Hurst on the mound. They have scored all of four total runs, batting just .141 with two doubles and a home run.

“Maybe the best thing I could do to help him is take him to the batting cage,” said Padre pitching coach Pat Dobson, laughing, hoping that Hurst one day will be able to do the same.

“He threw the ball great today. It was the best he’s thrown it this year. So I know he’s got to be pleased with what he’d doing.”

Of course, the way Harkey pitched, Hurst could have been out there all night before the Padres figured out how to beat him.

The Padres had heard of Harkey but never before faced him. This was a guy who was born in San Diego and drafted by the Padres in 1984, but he instead chose to attend Cal State Fullerton. He spent three years there, was the Cubs’ No. 1 pick in the 1987 draft, made it to the big leagues in September, 1988, and spent all of last season in the minors and on the disabled list.

Now, as the Padres have discovered, he’s back to haunt them.

“I was always a Dodger fan, anyway,” said Harkey, who moved to Pomona at the age of 1. “I had never even been to this stadium until two days ago.”

But there he was Thursday afternoon, in front of his wife and 18-month-old son, parents, grandparents and about a dozen friends, pitching the game of his life.

He opened by retiring the Padres in the first inning on three weak infield grounders, and in the seventh, he again prevented them from hitting the ball out of the infield. In between, the Padres still had not managed a hit, the closest being a Fred Lynn fly that Walton caught at the center-field wall.

“He was just awesome, everything was working,” Cub catcher Joe Girardi said. “But the crazy thing about it was that not a whole lot of people knew he had a no-hitter.”

Even the Padres weren’t acutely aware of the situation. They had collected a couple of walks early, and with Hurst matching Harkey virtually pitch for pitch, few realized they might become fodder for history.

“I didn’t even realize it until the seventh inning,” Stephenson said. “I was just sitting on the bench, and I looked at the scoreboard, and said, ‘Damn, we don’t have a hit yet, you know that?’ ”

They still were without one when Stephenson came to the plate to lead off the eighth. He and Harkey were teammates last season for the Cubs’ triple-A team in Iowa, but Stephenson was the player-to-be-named in the Aug. 31, 1989 trade that also brought Calvin Schiraldi and Darrin Jackson to the Cubs for Wynne and Salazar, and they never had a chance to say their farewells.

It had been a nice feeling, Stephenson said, to see Harkey healthy, but now was not the time to let sentiment stand in the way.

“I just wanted to get on,” Stephenson said, “I was even talking to Pags (teammate Mike Pagliarulo) and saying I might try to bunt my way on.”

Stephenson stepped to the plate: Ball 1. Strike 1. Foul. Foul. Ball 2.

“I was just trying to get on base,” Stephenson said, “but in the back of the my mind, I thought maybe he’d come back with that inside fastball.”

Stephenson guessed correctly, slammed it toward the right-field fence and kept watching right fielder Andre Dawson drift back and back and back . . .

Stephenson: “I figured either ‘Hawk’ was going to catch it against the fence, or it would scrape the back of the wall going over.”

Dawson: “When the ball was hit, it didn’t look like it was going out. I thought I’d probably catch it on the warning track. I didn’t think it was hit that well.”

Harkey: “I thought maybe it would stay in. Fred Lynn hit a ball just like that, and so did Phil the time before, so they didn’t go out. But Hawk kept going back, going back and just ran out of room.”

The ball just cleared the fence for the first homer Harkey ever allowed, leaving him slumped on the mound with his hands on his knees. Girardi came out to comfort him, but it didn’t matter. Stephenson had barely reached home when Cub Manager Don Zimmer was at the mound to take the ball.

“It was either going to be a no-hitter or a one-hitter,” said Zimmer, who also saw the Cubs’ last no-hitter by Milt Pappas in 1972, when he just so happened to be managing the Padres.

The crowd stood and gave Harkey a loud ovation. He shook a few hands and then watched reliever Mitch Williams retire six of the Padres’ final seven batters--allowing only a two-out double to Bip Roberts in the eighth--to record his fifth save.

“Really, I’m happy. I’m not going to second-guess any pitch I threw,” said Harkey, who came within two outs of a no-hitter against Cal State Long Beach in 1987. The ironic thing is that in my first spring training, Phil hit a couple real good ones against the wall.

“Now, of all times, it has to go over.”