Padres Catch Glimpse of Reds : Baseball: Dramatic 3-2 victory over Houston, coupled with Cincinnati’s 11-inning loss in San Francisco, closes gap in NL West to seven games.

Don’t let the Padres fool you. They can say all they want about how they’re not paying any attention to the Cincinnati Reds. Oh, that big scoreboard in right field? They tell you they watch it just to catch the daily baseball trivia question.

It’s funny, though. In the midst of the Padres’ dramatic, 3-2 victory over the Houston Astros Wednesday afternoon, didn’t we detect some hand-slapping in the Padre dugout when the players noticed that the Reds’ lead over San Francisco had disappeared in the ninth.

Let’s see, when Joe Carter’s two-run home run tied the game with one out in the ninth, and Garry Templeton’s two-out single won the game in front of 15,665 at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium, wasn’t that the Padres who were rushing into the clubhouse to watch the final two innings of the Cincinnati game on TV?

And when Kevin Mitchell hit a homer in the 11th, lifting the Giants past the Reds, 3-2, wasn’t there a loud cheer emerging from the players’ lounge?

Come on, guys, fess up.

“Yeah, we’re keeping an eye on them,” conceded Bip Roberts, the Padre left fielder. “But all we’ve got to say is, ‘Don’t count the Padres out.’

“Don’t count the Padres out.”

Said third baseman Mike Pagliarulo: “We’ve been chasing them for a long time. Hey, let them chase us the second half.”

The Padres, the team that two weeks ago looked as if it had as much chance of emerging in the National League West race as Jimmy Hoffa does of appearing in Las Vegas, quietly have become the hottest team in the major leagues over the past two weeks.

The Padres, who registered their first ninth-inning comeback victory since April 15 in San Francisco, swept three games from the Astros and have won 10 of their past 13. Their 28-24 record is their best mark after 52 games since the 1985 season.

The result is that the Padres have gained three games on the runaway Reds in less than 72 hours, reducing their deficit in the standings to seven games. How rare is this? Not only haven’t the Padres been within seven games of the Reds since May 12, but it’s the first time this season that they’ve gained more than 1 1/2 games over three days.

The Padres might not have the Reds trembling with their streak, but certainly, reports of the Padres’ death have been greatly exaggerated.

“It’s far too early to say no one’s going to be caught,” Padre first baseman Jack Clark said. “There’s a long way to go. Cincinnati’s going to have some bad stretches. You’ve got to remember, they’re a young team. Not too many of those guys have ever been through a pennant race. We’ll see what happens.”

Said Carter: “All we’ve got to do is worry about ourselves. If we play like we can, if we keep playing consistently like this, I don’t think there’ll be a problem.”

The Padres might have also cleared one major snag in their hopes of returning to the race when Mike Dunne yielded just two hits and two runs in six innings. He’ll return to the bullpen for two weeks while the Padres go with a four-man rotation, but at long last, it appears they might have found their fifth starter.

Dunne’s credentials coming in--losing two starts by a combined score of 27-11 with a 14.54 ERA over 4 1/3 innings--hardly were the kind that leave managers looking forward to your next start.

“I felt like an overboard anchor on a runaway ship,” Dunne said. “I was holding us down.”

This time, Dunne struck out the side in the first, pitched a perfect game for 3 2/3 innings and retired 15 of the 18 batters he faced. The only trouble was that one of his mistakes was leaving a fastball over the plate to Glenn Davis in the fourth inning, which Davis promptly deposited into the left-field seats for a 2-0 lead. It was Davis’ 17 homer, his 15th on the road.

“Even though I pitched well, I wasn’t feeling too good,” Dunne said. “I was just praying that Joe’s homer would stay fair. The man saved me today.”

Carter, in the midst of a three-for-25 slump in which two of his three RBIs were the result of sacrifice flies, stepped to the plate in the ninth with one out and Roberto Alomar on first.

Carter hadn’t done a thing in his first three at-bats, failing to even hit the ball out of the infield. Considering that Astro pitcher Mark Portugal still was on the mound, having allowed just two baserunners to third for the game, it’s little wonder that Carter was looking just for a base hit.

“I’ve looked pretty pathetic at the plate lately,” Carter said, “so I wasn’t looking to be greedy then. I just wanted to get on base.”

This also was no time for sentimental feelings. His folks, Joe and Athelene Carter, were in the stands, having come all of the way from Oklahoma City to see him. And yeah, it sure would be nice for them to see their son as the game’s hero. But when you’re standing at the plate just trying to fight off one nasty slider after another, you’re thinking about little else but the man standing 60-feet-6 away.

Portugal, getting ahead of Carter with a 1-2 count, wasted a breaking ball and then tried to slip a slider past him. It hung tantalizingly over the plate for a split second too long. Carter swung, and the crowd held its breath.

Home run.

Carter, showing a rare display of emotion, pumped his two fists into the air, the crowd went wild, and the Padre bench emptied and awaited him at home plate.

The game was tied, but it was as good as over. Portugal, obviously rattled, gave up a single to Benito Santiago. Dan Schatzeder came on in relief and walked Pagliarulo. Padre Manager Jack McKeon then called on Jack Clark to pinch-hit for Phil Stephenson, Clark’s first pinch-hitting appearance since June 15, 1989.

Astro Manager Art Howe, whose team owns the worst record in the National League, summoned Larry Andersen. Clark struck out looking, but Santiago and Pagliarulo pulled off a double steal. With first open, a decision had to be made. Howe could either have Andersen pitch to Templeton, who owned a career .421 batting average (eight for 19) against him. Or he could intentionally walk Templeton and take his chances with pinch-hitter Fred Lynn, who had flied out in his only plate appearance against Andersen.

They decided to pitch to Templeton.

“I was a little bit (surprised),” Templeton said. “With first base open, I thought they’d pitch around me. But they came right at me.”

Three pitchers later, on an 0-2 slider, Howe watched in anguish as Templeton dropped a bloop single in front of left fielder Craig Biggio for the game-winner.

“Those are the kind of games you need to put a streak together,” Templeton said. “Really, it couldn’t come at a better time. We’re playing in our division now, and starting to make up some ground.

“We know Cincinnati is going to run into a rut sooner or later, and who knows, maybe that rut is right now.”

Padre Notes

Tom Werner, the Padres’ prospective managing partner, has added four or five new partners to his ownership group, according to sources, pending approval by Major League Baseball. Werner is expected to reveal the identities of the new owners Sunday at a San Diego Press Club gathering. Werner’s ownership group has completed all of the due diligence reports and have only a few details remaining to finalize the $75-million deal with Padre owner Joan Kroc. They are expected to close the deal within hours of being approved June 13 or June 14 at the major league owners’ meetings in Cleveland and tentatively have scheduled a press conference formally announcing the deal June 14 in San Diego. . . . The new ownership group, according to sources, will take out insurance on the contracts of five of their multi-year players: outfielders Tony Gwynn and Joe Carter; starters Bruce Hurst and Ed Whitson, and relief pitcher Craig Lefferts. . . . Jack McKeon, Padre manager and vice president/baseball operations, continues to receive calls from clubs looking for pitching help. New York Yankee General Manager Harding Peterson telephoned McKeon earlier in the week, but their interest in outfielder/first baseman Jerald Clark and reliever Calvin Schiraldi has waned. The Padres are interested in Yankee middle relievers Eric Plunk and Greg Cadaret. . . . Astro pitcher Jim DeShaies, on being 2-8 against the Padres and 50-30 against everyone else: “They ought to allow you to put a clause in your contract where you could eliminate one club. If you get rid of them (the Padres), I’m in pretty good shape. Come to think of it, they shouldn’t even have a franchise here. This climate isn’t meant for baseball, it’s meant for golf. You can’t even sweat here.” . . . Schiraldi and his wife, Deborah, had their first child Tuesday night, a 6-pound 13-ounce girl named Samantha. Schiraldi, who has been in his hometown of Austin, Tex., the past two days, is expected to return to San Diego Friday. . . . Gwynn celebrated his ninth wedding anniversary with wife Alicia. The first part of the celebration, collecting two hits, was easy. Now, finding a new restaurant for the fourth consecutive year, Gwynn said, was a different matter. . . . Astro first baseman Glenn Davis, eligible for free agency at the end of the 1991 season, said that if the Astros don’t sign him to a contract extension in the next few weeks, they can forget about negotiating with him again until he files for free agency. He has hit seven homers in his past six games and 10 in his past 12 games. . . . Padre pitching coach Pat Dobson was a bit surprised when he looked up at the scoreboard Wednesday and saw that Stump Merrill had been hired as the new Yankee Manager. Their relation: Dobson once was the pitching coach in Nashville, Tenn. Merrill was the manager.