Padres Put Defeat in Perspective : Baseball: Mets win, 7-3. After collision involving Sheffield and Clark, Padres are thankful no one was seriously injured.

Instead of proving he can be a starter in the big leagues, Jose Melendez was in the showers by the fifth inning.

Instead of showing up his famous uncle, Gary Sheffield was narrowly averting disaster, scaring the daylights out of the Padres and his family.

Instead of staging a dramatic comeback victory, the Padres were left cursing their luck, losing 7-3 to the New York Mets at Shea Stadium.

The defeat, however, wasn’t foremost on their minds. If anything, they were grateful. The Padres were worried about the season.

It was a freak play that gave Padre General Manager Joe McIlvaine, Manager Greg Riddoch and the rest of the team a moment of horror.

Lying on the ground in pain, unable to move his leg, was Sheffield. Crumbled on the ground beside him was left fielder Jerald Clark. Amid the bodies was shortstop Tony Fernandez.

“I thought the worst,” McIlvaine said. “I thought there were broken bones. It looked like the Bermuda Triangle.”

Said Riddoch: “When he (Sheffield) was lying there face down, and couldn’t move, all I could think was, ‘Oh, Lord, please let him be OK.’ ”

After several minutes, Sheffield finally got up and started to walk. The crowd of 18,439 cheered. Sheffield’s parents, grandparents and children, all of whom traveled from Tampa, Fla., for the occasion, said a silent prayer.

Sheffield, who sustained a gash in his right shinbone, a bruised shoulder and a sore body, will be all right. Clark, who has a badly bruised left knee, might be out of the lineup until at least this weekend. Fernandez was simply scared.

It happened in the fourth inning when the Mets were in midst of knocking Melendez (4-1) out of the game in his first start of the season. Dick Schofield hit a foul pop toward the stands behind third base encroaching short left field. Sheffield raced back with his glove outstretched. Clark ran in from left. Fernandez drifted in between the two.

The ball dropped just out of Sheffield’s reach, and Clark, trying to avoid Fernandez, spun in the air and collided with Sheffield. His left knee slammed into Sheffield’s right shinbone before his spikes tore into Sheffield’s skin, and each slammed into the turf.

Clark lay on the ground wincing in pain. He didn’t know which hurt worse, his right elbow or knee. Then he looked at Sheffield. That’s when he got scared.

“I said, ‘Oh no, he’s out,’ ” Clark said. “I was hurting, but after seeing him, I started worrying more about him than myself.”

Said Sheffield: “Oh, man, was I scared. Very scared. I mean, it was bad. thought my ankle was broke. I tried to get up, and my leg buckled. I couldn’t even move. They said, ‘Move your toes,’ and that’s when I started to get feeling back in my leg again.

“Jerald’s hurt worse than me, but it’s lucky he was in the air, or else he might have really hurt himself.”

Perhaps the biggest miracle was that Clark and Sheffield were able to remain in the game, although it’s quite possible that Sheffield will join Clark on the bench today.

Broken bones or not, it put a damper on the evening’s festivities, which included the first professional matchup between Sheffield and his uncle, Met starter Dwight Gooden.

Sheffield had a single in three at-bats against Gooden and did not strike out. He did not a home run, either.

So who won the family battle?

“I won,” Gooden (3-3) said. “I won the game, didn’t I? He should be buying me dinner.”

Said Sheffield: “What do you mean? I won. He didn’t strike me out. He didn’t hit no triple. And he didn’t break my bat.”

Maybe there’ll be a clear-cut winner next week when the two face one another again in San Diego.

“It’ll be fun every time we meet,” Sheffield said. “I won’t be so anxious next time. I mean, after I swung at the first pitch off him tonight, I was thinking, I’ve got to take a few pitches just so the family can get a few pictures.”

Melendez won’t want any mementos. Making his first start of the season after 16 appearances in the bullpen, there are no guarantees he’ll be making another.

“We think there’ll be another,” Riddoch said, “but we haven’t decided. It’s totally up in the air.”

Melendez yielded six hits and five earned runs in four innings.

The Mets, who scored two runs in the first inning on Eddie Murray’s two-run homer, had him on the ropes the entire fourth inning, but failed to deliver the knockout punch. Still, it was enough of a pounding that when the inning was over, the Padres weren’t letting him return.

It started when Bobby Bonilla, hitting only .133 at Shea Stadium this season, led off with a single to right. Murray walked on five pitches. Howard Johnson followed with a single to right, loading the bases.

It became a familiar sight.

The bases were loaded the next five times the Mets stepped to the plate, and they scored three runs. And considering the Mets are 18-0 this season when scoring first in a game, the lead was enough.

The Padres valiantly came back in the seventh. They scored two runs, knocked Gooden out of the game, loaded the bases and had Sheffield at the plate.

Sheffield, with the chance to tie the game at 5-apiece and leave his uncle with a no-decision, hit a sharp grounder off Jeff Innis that appeared headed toward left field. Third baseman Dave Magadan dived, stopped the ball, got to his knees, and threw out Tony Gwynn a split-second before he arrived at second base.

“It was the best play I’ve ever seen him make,” said McIlvaine, former executive of the Mets. “That was the game right there. But hey, it could have been worse.

“Much worse.”