Harnisch Harnesses the Padres : Baseball: Houston pitcher continues mastery in 3-1 victory, helping his cause with a two-run double.

The Padres timidly walked to the plate Friday night, saw the cold, brown eyes of Houston Astros pitcher Pete Harnisch sneering at them and knew they were in trouble.

They might as well have been facing Walter Johnson or Bob Feller. For all the Padres know, Harnisch indeed could be reincarnated, coming back to this world simply to torment them.

“We do know one thing,” Padres first baseman Fred McGriff said, “he sure ain’t scared of us.”

Harnisch, smirking all the way, continued his dominance of the Padres, leading the Astros to a 3-1 victory in front of a crowd of 12,505 at the Astrodome.

“The guy’s sure got some kind of mastery over the Padres, doesn’t he?” Padres Manager Greg Riddoch said in the biggest understatement since the House of Representatives confirmed they had bounced a couple of checks.

Harnisch, who allowed only five hits in 8 2/3 innings Friday, has surrendered only one run in 29 2/3 career innings against the Padres. Even then, the run-scoring hit came not off Harnisch but off reliever Doug Jones in the ninth inning.

“I’m sure when he faces us,” McGriff said, “he’s got a lot of confidence going for him. I’m sure he feels real good. The way we hit off him, wouldn’t you?”

In Harnisch’s four career starts against the Padres, he has yielded only 14 hits, while striking out 30. The Padres own a .139 batting average against him.

How good is this 25-year-old from Long Island?

- Padre right fielder Tony Gwynn was left so frustrated that he struck out on a ball nearly over his head, fired his bat and helmet toward the dugout and refused to talk to reporters after the game.

Considering Gwynn has four batting titles and a .340 career average against the Astros, it’s quite a feat to keep Gwynn hitless in nine career at-bats.

“I’m not going to say anything about that,” Harnisch said. “If I say something, he’ll go four for four the next time I face him.”

- Padres left fielder Jerald Clark was left so frustrated that he failed to hit the ball out of the infield against Harnisch and declined to discuss his .100 career average against him.

- McGriff, the Padres’ biggest power-hitter, bats .111 against Harnisch, with two singles in 18 at-bats.

“The man is tough,” McGriff said, shaking his head. “He throws a fastball up in your face, and it looks so good to hit, but you can’t catch up with it. He comes right at you. It’s either, ‘I got you, or you got me.’ ”

Harnisch’s pitching performance would have been enough, but in the seventh inning, he hurt the Padres with his bat.

The Astros, hanging onto a 1-0 lead, opened the seventh when Ken Caminiti laid down a bunt that Padre starter Bruce Hurst was unable to handle. Caminiti went to second on Chris Jones’ bunt and to third on Scott Servais’ grounder to shortstop Tony Fernandez. It hardly seemed to be a perilous situation.

Shortstop Andujar Cedeno, an .087 hitter, was at the plate. Harnisch, an .089 hitter, was on deck.

Riddoch decided he’d try his hand with Harnisch and intentionally walked Cedeno. Who knows, maybe Astros Manager Art Howe would be tempted to go to his bench for a pinch-hitter?

“No way,” Howe said.

Besides, considering Harnisch flied out deep to left field in his first at-bat, Howe wasn’t convinced that he didn’t have his best hitter at the plate, anyway.

Hurst’s first pitch to Harnisch was a change-up, bouncing in the dirt that Santiago scrambled to save. Riddoch went to the mound and talked with Hurst and Santiago. He advised them that the Astros might attempt a double steal, and to forget about Cedeno at first and worry only about Harnisch.

The Astros, it turns out, were going to pull off the play one pitch later. They never had a chance.

Hurst threw a fastball over the heart of the plate, and Harnisch lined the ball into the left-center gap. By the time center fielder Darrin Jackson retrieved the ball, Caminiti and Cedeno scored, and Harnisch was standing on second with a double.

Just like that, in back-to-back games, the Padres were beaten by a pitcher. San Francisco Giants starter Bill Swift had a key double in Thursday’s defeat.

Frustrating?

“It’s so frustrating, it’s the most frustrating thing I’ve ever been through in my life,” said Hurst, sarcastically as possible. “I’m thinking of going out and maybe hanging myself, it’s so frustrating.”

Hurst, who gave up six hits and three runs in 6 2/3 innings--including Steve Finley’s first career homer in the Astrodome in the third inning--perhaps can be excused for his demeanor. It’s just that when you have not won a game since Aug. 28, spanning seven starts, it becomes, well, frustrating.

Harnisch knows all about that. He yielded the league’s lowest batting average (.212) last season, had the fifth-lowest ERA (2.70), had two shutouts and still won only 12 games because of the Astros’ meager offense. Harnisch left in two scoreless games against the Padres last season and wound up pitching in six 1-0 games for the season, winning only two of them.

“You know, I don’t want to say too much because if everybody reads it,” Harnisch said, “I’ll never get any runs. But I pitched in so many last year, that I’m comfortable when it’s 0-0.

“That’s all I’ve ever known against the Padres. Maybe that’s why I’ve had the success.”

Said Howe: “I told him over the winter, ‘Hey, you’ve got to work on your hitting just to help yourself out.’ ”

Harnisch purchased a pair of neon batting gloves this spring, the ones he calls, “My Battlestar Galactica gloves,” and apparently took Howe’s advice.

“Great, that’s all we need,” McGriff said. “It was bad enough when he couldn’t hit.”