PADRES UPDATE : NOTEBOOK / BOB WOLF : Hammaker Putting the Cap On Another Disappointing Year

It has been another lost season for Atlee Hammaker, and the veteran lefthander can’t help but wonder if he is ever going to get a break.

Hammaker, 33, has pitched in only six games all year--none in spring training, one with the Padres on June 16, and five on rehabilitation assignment at double-A Wichita. Now he is back with the Padres, having rejoined them Tuesday, and hopes to use what remains of the season to establish himself as a viable candidate for renewed major-league status next year. He will become a free agent when the season ends.

“What a year,” Hammaker said. “I finally feel like I’m ready to go.”

This sort of thing is old hat to Hammaker, but that doesn’t make it any easier for him to take. When he was with the San Francisco Giants, he appeared in only eight games in 1984 and sat out the 1986 season, each time because of a torn rotator cuff.

This year, Hammaker got hurt before training camp. He broke a finger lifting weights. And as soon as he finally got into a game in June, he suffered tendinitis in his elbow. At least he survived his 7 2/3-inning stint at Wichita without further injury.

“I pitched an inning or two in relief every other day,” Hammaker said. “I probably could have come back earlier, but they waited until Sept. 1 when the roster limit went up (from 25 to 40). Why move somebody else for the sake of a few days? Plus I haven’t thrown all year.”

Hammaker credited John Cumberland, Wichita pitching coach and a former major-league left-hander, with improving his mechanics.

“He helped me with my whole game, my whole approach,” Hammaker said. “I did well with all four of my pitches--fastball, slider, changeup and split finger.”

Hammaker was once an all-star starter with the Giants, but he has no illusions of being able to start a game before the season is over.

“I haven’t gotten in enough innings to start,” he said. “I just want to relieve in a few games and prove I still have the ability to pitch up here.”

Hammaker has undergone seven operations in a major-league career that began in 1981 with the Kansas City Royals.

“Two shoulders, one elbow and both knees twice,” he said. “That’s enough.”

Another Padre lefthander, Pat Clements, also reported Tuesday after going through rehab at Triple-A Las Vegas. He had been on the disabled list since April 25 because of shoulder surgery, but pitched in 11 games at Las Vegas.

“I don’t feel totally healthy yet, but I’m close,” Clements said. “

Clements had torn cartilage in his shoulder, and no, he didn’t incur the injury while pitching.

“I got it on a swing in San Francisco,” Clements said. Ironically, that turned out to be his only at-bat in six outings totaling 9 1/3 innings.

Early arrivals for Tuesday night’s game saw Cub outfielder Doug Dascenzo masquerading--partly at least--as a football player. He was wearing a helmet, the result of a prank pulled on him after he was hit on the head by Benito Santiago’s drive in the ninth inning Monday night.

Credit for the stunt went to Cub trainer John Fierro, who borrowed the No. 65 helmet normally worn by Charger guard David Richards and taped Dascenzo’s name on the front. The proximity of the Charger locker room to the baseball visitors’ clubhouse made the helmet loan easy, especially Tuesday was the Chargers’ day off.

When Dascenzo reached his locker, he found the helmet on the shelf. Going along with the gag, he wore it while sitting in the dugout and then while going through stretching exercises with the team.

During the stretching routine, Santiago shook Dascenzo’s hand and thanked him for the gift double.

“The trainer doesn’t want to see me get hurt,” Dascenzo said. “I slipped and fell, and the ball hit my head, then the fence. It just raised a little welt. I didn’t even get a headache.”

Dascenzo said that the only teammate who didn’t “get on me” was George Bell, perhaps because Bell himself took some ribbing in the form of a laundry basket.

Both Dascenzo and Bell committed errors in Monday night’s game, but that is where their defensive similarity ends.

Before Dascenzo dropped a fly ball against the Padres on Aug. 25, he set a National League record of 242 games without an error, which was also the longest errorless streak by an outfielder from the start of a career in major-league history.

Bell, on the other hand, is as widely known for his shaky fielding as for his heavy hitting.