Whitson Padres’ Complete Man

Someone’s got to tell Padre pitcher Ed Whitson that it’s not supposed to work this way. Come on, where’s the man’s etiquette?

Everyone knows that if you’re a big-league starting pitcher these days, you’ve got to be sitting on the disabled list, struggling to find your control, or at the very least, bailing out of games after six or seven innings.

The spring-training lockout was the perfect excuse, anyway, remember? Hey, it’s the owners who wanted to play hard ball. So they were going to have be the ones suffering the consequences when their pitchers spent the first couple of months with sore arms, ERAs soaring higher than the consumer price index, and complete games becoming as common as solidarity in the White House.

The trouble is that Eddie Lee Whitson never has been one to conform to the status quo, and what he’s doing now--with all due respect to Dave Stewart of Oakland, Frank Viola of the New York Mets and Nolan Ryan of Texas--is showing up just about every starting pitcher in baseball.

Whitson pitched an 8-3 complete-game victory Sunday afternoon over the Chicago Cubs in front of a subdued sellout crowd of 34,077, enabling the Padres to leave town with as many victories (two) at Wrigley Field in 21 hours as they had obtained in their previous three years at the so-called friendly confines.

Heck, the last time the Padres even won a series at Wrigley was July 16-18, 1984, and never had they won a game by such a lopsided margin at Wrigley since June 1, 1982.

Whitson, the man who will turn 35 years old in two weeks, has now thrown three complete games.

To lend a little perspective to that feat, consider this: Whitson not only has more complete games than every pitcher in the major leagues, but has more complete games than 24 entire major-league pitching staffs.

The secret to Whitson’s success, you ask? Wait until you get a load of this one.

“The lockout,” Whitson says. “If it wasn’t for the lockout, I don’t think I’d be pitching like this. See, I was working out all winter, two times a day, five days a week. So when the Players Association told us to stop working out, I was way ahead of the game.

“I was going through my worst time in spring training, that’s when I had my dead arm. I think other guys are going through that now, and that’s giving me the advantage.

“I feel better now than any time I ever have in my life. I feel like a kid again, only I’m pitching better.”

Whitson (3-1) has been so dominant this season that he has yet to throw more than 100 pitches in a single game, and what he did Sunday afternoon simply was obscene.

Whitson, who allowed eight hits and three runs, threw a career-equalling low 84 pitches the entire game, and not once did he throw more than 14 pitches in a single inning. In contrast, Cub starter Mike Bielecki threw 38 pitches alone in the first inning, lasting just 4 2/3 innings, leaving with a 5-1 deficit.

Whitson’s control was so sharp in this game that he threw just 19 balls, including six in the final four innings. He threw 25 first-pitch strikes to the 35 batters he faced, resulting in nine first-pitch outs, and four first-pitch hits. Not only didn’t he walk anyone, he never even reached a full-count on any batter.

“All of us have a lot of fun playing behind Whitson,” said Padre shortstop Garry Templeton, who went three for four. “He pitches so fast, he keeps you right on your toes. In the past, he tried to throw 95 mph and knock the bat out of everyone’s hands, but now he’s learned that you don’t have to strike out everyone to win.”

Said Whitson: “I just wish I had learned that 10 years ago. The bottom line is winning, that’s why I’m out there. I don’t care if I throw 160 pitches, just give me that W.”

And certainly the way the Padres have fared at Wrigley in their history, they’ll take that ‘W” any way they can get it. The Padres had lost 16 of their past 18 games at Wrigley entering the weekend, and 26 of 34 since the 1984 World Series. Yet, here they were Sunday, scoring four runs in the first inning and recording their first laugher at Wrigley in eight years.

Second baseman Roberto Alomar, who was batting third for just the second time of his professional career because of the back injury to first baseman Jack Clark, was the offensive catalyst by going four for five with two RBIs and a stolen base. It was the third four-hit game of Alomar’s career.

“I would really like to hit third because I get a chance to drive people in,” Alomar said. “It makes me a more aggressive hitter, and that’s the way I want to be.”

But as much as Whitson relished his complete game, Alomar enjoyed his four-hit game, and Santiago admired his two-run homer, perhaps no one was more thrilled by this victory than right fielder Tony Gwynn.

Gwynn was taunted and ridiculed throughout the series by the bleacher bums, most focusing on his weight. Some of it, he could tolerate. He even grinned when a guy yelled out, ‘Why don’t you put some butter between those buns?” But most of it was cruel.

Yet it was Gwynn who got the last laugh, going six for 13 in the series, including a three-for-five outing Sunday with three runs.

“They really get on me here, ever since the ’84 playoffs,” Gwynn said. “It’s really tough to concentrate. You try to do your job, but they still yell at you, calling you every name in the book.

“But this time, everything worked out Ok. I can’t even remember the last time we were able to leave here with a smile on our face.

“Let me tell you, it’s a nice feeling.”

Padre Notes

Mike Dunne of the Padres’ triple-A club in Las Vegas threw a no-hitter Sunday night against Portland. Dunne is in Las Vegas on a rehabilitation assignment and is expected to join the Padres within three weeks.