Emergency Starter Maddux Comes to the Padres’ Rescue : Baseball: Right-hander throws six shutout innings, and Padres’ 18-hit attack does the rest in 11-0 victory over Pittsburgh.

Padre Manager Greg Riddoch walked onto the field 15 minutes before Saturday’s game and saw his pitching coach frantically waving his hand, his starter walking off the field while holding his shoulder and his middle reliever walking toward the mound.

“I said, ‘Oh no,’ ” Riddoch said, “ ‘Not again.’ ”

Adam Peterson, the scheduled starter, found out just before game time that he couldn’t pitch because of a strained right shoulder. Pitching coach Mike Roarke turned to right-hander Mike Maddux, hoping he’d keep the game respectable.

So imagine everyone’s astonishment when the Padres laughed their way to a 11-0 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates in front of 51,292 at Three Rivers Stadium. The margin was one run shy of the Padres’ most lopsided shutout in franchise history.

“This club simply amazes me,” Padre right fielder Tony Gwynn said. “With all our injuries, and everything that’s happened, we’re right there in the hunt. Let me tell you, this club has got a lot of heart.”

The Padres (29-27), who already have placed 10 players on the disabled list this season, including six pitchers, are only three games behind the division-leading Dodgers despite having called up 10 players from their triple-A Las Vegas club.

Because of the injury to Peterson, the seventh pitcher this season to be injured, they’re forced to call upon the reserves again. The Padres after the game recalled left-hander Atlee Hammaker from his rehabilitative assignment in triple-A Las Vegas and released third baseman Jim Presley.

Presley, who started in only one game since the May 11 arrival of Scott Coolbaugh, was batting .136 with one homer and five RBIs. He had asked the Padres to trade him or release him two weeks ago in Houston.

The Padres had decided they likely would release him by the All-Star break, anyway, because of an incentive in his contract that would have provided him an additional $150,000 if he was on the team July 7. The Padres still will have to pay him $500,000.

Presley, who conceded it was a relief he finally was let go, was the only Padre position player who wasn’t able to enjoy the Padres’ biggest offensive performance at Three Rivers Stadium since June 2, 1970, when they scored 14 runs.

It was the Padres’ largest shutout victory in seven years, dating back to July 30, 1984, when they beat the Dodgers 12-0. In all, they set or tied nine season highs with their offensive explosion, collecting 18 hits, including five for extra bases. The hits and runs totals were season highs.

Everyone in the starting lineup collected at least one hit, and six players had at least two. The Padres scored three runs in the first inning, had a 5-0 lead by the second, an 8-0 lead in the fourth and were ahead 11-0 by the fifth inning.

Leading the way was Gwynn.

He went three for four, raising his batting average to a league-leading .371, and extended his hitting streak to a season-high 14 games. It represents Gwynn’s longest hitting streak since July 2-July 22, 1988, when had an 18-game streak, the second-longest of his career. He has hit safely in 26 of his past 27 games.

“Oh, man, it was unbelievable,” said Peterson, realizing that he could have been the beneficiary of the offensive production. “I could have thrown underhanded and got the win today. Just my luck, huh?”

Peterson, who said that his shoulder has been bothering him the past four days, says he should be fine by his next scheduled start Thursday against the St. Louis Cardinals. Still, he knows as well as anyone that the Padres have few such outbursts.

As overpowering as the Padres were at the plate, Maddux was equally dominating on the mound, allowing only two hits in six innings.

Maddux retired the first nine batters he faced without allowing a ball out of the infield, and he didn’t allow a fly ball out of the infield until the fifth inning.

When Maddux left the game after the sixth inning, he had thrown only 51 pitches. He could be used as early again as Monday.

“I kind of enjoyed the (short notice), to tell you the truth,” Maddux said. “That way, you don’t have four or five days to worry about it. It turned out to be just another day at the ballpark.”

Maddux might be stretching the truth a bit. He has had elbow surgery twice in the past two years and was out of baseball four months ago until introducing himself to Padre General Manager Joe McIlvaine at a baseball banquet in Las Vegas.

Maddux also was rushed into a game April 22 against the San Francisco Giants when Greg Harris lasted just one pitch, but the last time he actually started a game was June 12, 1990, against the Houston Astros.

When asked if he remembered his last start, Maddux paused, wracked his brain for about 30 seconds, and then a smile creased his face.

“Ooh, yeah,” he said, “How could I forget?”

Maddux lasted only one-third of an inning that night for the Dodgers against the Houston Astros, yielding five hits, five earned runs and two homers. By the time the game ended, he was packing his suitcase for a trip to the triple-A club in Albuquerque.

And it had been more than two years since he won a start, going back two organizations ago to April 29, 1989, when he beat the Cincinnati Reds, 8-0, in a rain-shortened, five-inning game while pitching for the Philadelphia Phillies.

“What can I say?” said Maddux, who is 3-1 with a 2.85 ERA. “I’ve had an opportunity, and I’m taking advantage of it.”

Maddux will return to the bullpen today, but considering the casualty rate on the Padre pitching staff, he’ll be advised to stay prepared for more emergency starts.

The Padres, who have used 17 pitchers and outfielder Darrin Jackson in games this season, will have to go longer without the services of starter Ed Whitson. Whitson, who has been on the disabled list since May 27 with tendinitis in his right elbow, threw off the mound Saturday for the first time since the injury, but was forced to stop, feeling pain.

Also, Padre reliever John Costello, bidding for his first save or victory since 1989, couldn’t complete a three-inning stint and had to be relieved by Rich Rodriguez with one out in the ninth because of stiffness in his right shoulder.

“And the beat goes on,” Riddoch said.

The best news for the pitching staff was that Greg Harris, who has been on the disabled list since April 23 with elbow tendinitis, threw his second simulated game free of pain. He will begin a rehabilitative assignment in the next few days.

“I feel perfectly healthy now,” Harris said, “but that’s probably the most frustrating part. I’m healthy and I’m not pitching. I’m getting sick of sitting. This whole thing has been a pain. It’s like going through spring training in the middle of the season.

“I just want to get back here as soon as I can and help this team win.”