Padres Finally Lose in 16th

In the end, after 5 hours 1 minute Friday night, after 13 pitchers and 26 hits, after what started out as a pitcher’s duel between Greg Harris and Tim Belcher--featuring six no-hit inning by Belcher, the Padres. . . .

Lost.

Thanks mainly to Randy Myers blowing a four-run Padre lead in the ninth, Cincinnati defeated San Diego in 16 innings, 7-6, in the longest Padre game since Aug. 15, 1990, when they defeated Montreal in 17 innings, 5-3, also in San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

By the time Bill Doran drove in Bip Roberts with a sacrifice fly in the 16th, only about 1,500 remained from an original crowd of 22,956.

Those hardcores ended up seeing a 25-year-old Cincinnati pitcher named Scott Foster (1-0) earn his first major league victory. One summer after being detained by customs on a Reds trip to Montreal--when asked if he had anything to declare, Foster, who had never before been out of the country, thought for a second and then said, “Yes, I’m proud to be an American”--Foster worked four innings, allowing two hits and three walks. He struck out four.

The Padres’ Jeremy Hernandez (0-1) lost his first major league decision, capping a rough couple of days. He had his car stolen on the Padres’ off day Thursday.

Cincinnati’s Scott Bankhead, who started 33 games for Seattle in 1989, earned his first major league save.

It was a night that got weirder as it went, as evidenced by the Padre roster being drained so severely that they were forced to employ pitcher Bruce Hurst to pinch-hit for Hernandez to lead off the bottom of the 16th.