Clark Sounds Off; Padres Lose Again

The words came carefully from Jack Clark a couple of hours after another Padre loss, this time 4-1 to the St. Louis Cardinals.

The Padres, who are stumbling into the All-Star break this week are clearly not the same Padres who cheerfully broke camp in Yuma three months ago and expected to skip directly to the NL West championship. For two consecutive years now, the Padres have generally been considered the class of the NL West, and the Padres have spent each of those two years sleepwalking into the All-Star break.

Clark has seen it all, and no matter how badly he wants to change the vision, he can’t. The Padres are 13 1/2 games behind the Cincinnati Reds, which basically means that the Padres have lost a game a week to the Reds since opening day.

So, as the Padres scattered into the three-day break, Clark could stand it no more. Each day, his frustration cuts deeper. Each day, as the Padres settle into fourth place, Clark wonders why.

There are no easy answers, he said. No sir. Changes would be a start, and a gut check, too. You see, the ugly scars from the Padres’ first team meeting in New York over Memorial Day weekend are not healing. No, they are getting more and more noticeable with each loss during the Padres’ lost season.

“You need to have a direction and a goal for the final result,” Clark said. “I think we had that when we started, and we believed. We not only don’t believe as much any more, but we don’t believe in each other as much any more. It’s tough.

“It’s weird. It’s ugly. It’s frustrating.

Padre problems?

“You could probably pinpoint it more if you were writing a book,” Clark said.

The losses are accumulating, and a team meeting in mid-May to get some internal problems out in the open hasn’t seemed to help.

“It’s a little bit uncomfortable in here right now before we get on the field,” Clark said. “I’m talking about a few situations that don’t seem to be coming around. Some guys are a certain way, and some guys don’t want to adapt and overcome. They’re satisfied and happy.

“It may look like the guys who statistically aren’t having the best years, that you can put the blame on them. When you win, you win as a team and you lose as a team--it’s everybody’s fault. Everybody can do a little better and a little more to help win, and then when things go sour you like to see everybody try to do (those things). And we’re not getting it.

“Some of us learn that and some of us don’t. And that makes it uncomfortable. What are you going to do? You can only do so much.”

The Padres’ loss Sunday, which came in front of 17,174 in San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium, was their 10th defeat in their past 12 games. During that stretch, their offense has batted .207.

The Padres haven’t won back-to-back games since June 19-23, when they won three in a row.

“After a while, it gets confusing,” Clark said. “You’re trying to work for something not everyone’s working for. You just want to go out and play, and whatever the results are, you’re happy with that. I don’t think that’s right, but other people do, I guess.

“That’s part of the problem. I don’t really know how to go about fixing it, except there’s a whole second half and a long ways to go and keep working. But you don’t want to just keep doing what you’re doing--playing like a fourth, fifth or last-place ballclub, and if we do that, that’s what we’re going to be.”

Now that the break is here, Clark said, he hopes Padre general manager/manager Jack McKeon, new owner Tom Werner and the rest of the new owners take a long, hard look at the team.

“Hopefully, they can come up with some answers that can bring a little bit more intensity here,” he said. “I hope they can do it because it’s not any fun this way, that’s for sure. I think some of us have tried, and some are interested and some aren’t, for whatever reason.”

One problem, Clark said, is the problem that Mike Pagliarulo first spoke of in mid-May. Some Padres are worried more about individual numbers than team results.

“You have to look at it personally. . . . Once you start accepting what’s going on, I think it’s like anything else,” Clark said. “Once an alcoholic or drug user admits he has a problem, that’s the first step to recovery. Only once you are here and able to say ‘I’m the reason or part of the reasons why we’re here, and I haven’t got the job done, and I’ve failed and it’s embarrassing and all that . . . ‘ I think that’s someplace to start. I think it reflects when you’re still trying in the field.

“It seems like the team doesn’t accept success. It’s just happy to be here, going through the motions. . . .

“It’s got to drive Jack (McKeon) crazy. We’ve talked about it as players. We’ll come back and hopefully the second half will be a little bit different. I don’t know why it would.

“Like I said, the owners and everybody hopefully will have some ideas that will make some sort of difference and change the way this stuff is going. Get a little more pride, dedication, and a little more intensity. All the good things that go along with being a winner.

“I think we had a lot of this same thing going on when the team was winning, and nobody nipped it in the bud. As a result now, things have turned sour and obviously there are some problems.”

Like being 13 1/2 games behind Cincinnati. Sunday, the Padres made St. Louis starter Bob Tewksbury look like Bob Gibson, and they wasted a strong outing by Ed Whitson (6-6). Whitson’s record is .500 despite his 2.89 earned-run average. He hasn’t won since June 23.

“I’ve been more consistent this year than I have in my whole career,” Whitson said. “I’m keeping us in games, I’m throwing strikes. . . . I should have 12 or 13 wins by now. It’s been old for me for quite awhile. You come to the ballpark every day wishing, hoping. I don’t know what the story is, but it’s got to be something.”

Fifty minutes afterward, he was still sitting in front of his locker, staring straight ahead.

Whitson thinks part of the Padres’ problem relates to some of the guys whom the Padres have already traded away--guys such as Carmelo Martinez, Randy Ready, Marvell Wynne and John Kruk. Guys who laughed and joked and kept the clubhouse loose.

“Guys that are always causing . . . in the locker room or the dugout,” Whitson said. “That’s how you stay loose. Our players right now, including myself, you’ve got too much time to think about what’s going on and not enough joking and kidding and being agitated by somebody else--two or three other guys.

“You’ve got to have a lot of little kid in you, and when you take the little kid out, the game’s no fun any more.”

That’s when Whitson mentioned his former teammates.

“They were always loud-talking everybody,” he said. “And we liked it. The players enjoyed it. I miss that on this ballclub.”

The Padres could use some hits as well as free spirits. Tewksbury went 8 1/3 innings Sunday and limited the Padres to just three hits. And this is a guy who entered the game with a major league career record of, ta-da, 14-14.

“The guys that give us that off-speed stuff, we have a tough time with,” McKeon said. “Of course, we have a tough time with all of them.”

The Padres were without Tony Gwynn, who sprained his left knee sliding into third Saturday, and Bip Roberts, who left Saturday’s game with a right calf strain. Gwynn flew to Chicago Sunday evening and still hopes to play in Tuesday’s All-Star Game.

The Cardinals got a run in the fourth off Whitson, two in the fifth and then added a final run in the ninth against Craig Lefferts. The run wasn’t charged to Lefferts, though, because Pagliarulo made two errors at third base in a span of five batters in the inning.

So the beatings go on. . . .

“Things can be a lot better, but we’ve got to get a new look somehow,” Clark said. “It’s tough without getting personal. It’s better to just blame yourself so you don’t go over the edge.

“I think it’s time to do something. Some type of action somewhere to bring the type of whatever it is that we need here . . . whether it’s players or whatever.”

Meanwhile, the Padres are faced with playing out the string during one of the more disappointing seasons in team history.

“Who knows . . . there’s still a long ways to go,” Clark said. “I’m sure there will be some changes--for the better, though, that’s for sure.”

Padre Notes

Tony Gwynn’s streak of 86 consecutive starts was snapped Sunday because of his strained knee. . . . Plays of the game: St. Louis outfielder Rex Hudler made a diving catch in the Padre bullpen to snare Ed Whitson’s foul fly in the fifth. Then, in the sixth, Padre outfielder Fred Lynn made sort of a hopping, running catch on Pedro Guerrero’s fly to left. . . . Whitson didn’t allow a walk in the game, the fourth time this season he has done that. . . . Pitcher Dennis Rasmussen was elected as the Padres’ player representative earlier this week, and pitcher Andy Benes was named as alternate. . . . At the All-Star break last year, the Padres were 42-46, 9 1/2 games out of first. . . . Pitching matchups for the three-game series with Pittsburgh, beginning Thursday: the Padres’ Andy Benes (6-6) vs. John Smiley (4-3) Thursday; Dennis Rasmussen (7-5) vs. Doug Drabek (9-4) Friday; Bruce Hurst (5-7) vs. Bob Walk (4-4) Saturday; Ed Whitson (6-6) vs. Neal Heaton (10-4) Sunday. . . . Minor League Report: Warren Newson hit his fourth homer in three days as Las Vegas (triple-A) lost at Calgary, 6-3. It was Newson’s 12th homer of the season.

PADRE ATTENDANCE Sunday: 17,174

1990 (47 dates): 1,237,703

1989 (47 dates): 1,220,682

Increase: 17,021

1990 Average: 26,334