Mets Tee Off on Vexed Harris : Baseball: New York hits three homers off right-hander, and those are plenty for Sid Fernandez, who earns 8-3 victory over Padres.

Starter Greg Harris didn’t unleash a tirade of obscenities or scream in anguish.

He barely even raised his voice after the Padres’ 8-3 defeat to the New York Mets in front of 27,541 at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

It’s just not Harris’ style. He keeps his frustrations pent up inside, letting his insides churn.

Instead, his release is to lace up a pair of tennis shoes, go down to the beach near his Del Mar home and run as long as it takes for the last ounce of anxiety to seep from his body.

“There’s a lot of the same personality traits between him and Roger Clemens,” teammate Bruce Hurst said recently. “When they’re frustrated, they just go run. They’ll put on their running shoes after a game and run all night if they have to, working out the frustration.”

The beach-goers can’t recite Harris’ pitching statistics, but considering they’ve been watching him run lately as if he’s trying out for the Olympic track team, they can ascertain that times indeed are tough.

“There have been times I’ve struggled before,” Harris said, “but nothing like this. What can I say, man, things are not going good right now. I’m not making good pitches when I’m behind in the count, and to be honest, I’m not even making good pitches when I’m ahead in the count.

“I don’t know what’s going wrong, I really don’t.”

Harris, who entered this season with the lowest ERA of any pitcher in Padre history, and was rewarded with a two-year, $3 million contract, is 1-4 with a 5.03 ERA. He lasted only 3 2/3 innings Thursday, surrendering nine hits, two homers and seven earned runs.

Harris’ confidence has been left in tatters. He is winless in his last four starts, yielding a 10.61 ERA. During that span, he has given up 30 hits, seven homers, 12 walks and 22 earned runs in 18 2/3 innings.

Harris is left questioning whether he can still throw his curveball for strikes. He questions whether his fastball is good enough. He questions his pitch selection. He questions his mechanics.

“That is not a good thing to be doing,” said Mike Roarke, Padre pitching coach. “But if you go out there and give up seven runs on the mound, you shouldn’t have confidence.

“I’d worry more about the guy who gives up seven runs and says, ‘I pitched as good as I can.’ ”

The Padres publicly are saying they have no doubts Harris soon will revert to form. After all, he entered this season with a career 2.34 ERA. Even when he spent 72 days on the disabled list last season with elbow tendinitis, he returned to win five of his last six games, including two shutouts.

Privately, however, the Padres are worried as much as Harris. His fastball is being clocked in the low 80s. His curveball is missing the sharp bite, resulting in 12 walks in the last 12 2/3 innings. And now, it’s as if he’s second-guessing himself on every pitch he throws before releasing it.

“Those guys kept laying off his curveball,” catcher Benito Santiago said, “and just sat on that fastball.”

The Mets realized early this was going to be an enjoyable day at the ballpark. It took Harris four pitches before he could even throw a strike to leadoff hitter Darryl Boston, and it took only four batters for the Mets to load the bases.

Harris managed to escaped unscathed, striking out Bobby Bonilla on an inside fastball and inducing a ground ball from Howard Johnson. The Houdini act, the Padres hoped, would rekindle his optimism. Maybe it was just what Harris needed.

“I really thought that would turn him around,” Roarke said.

Instead, he yielded a second inning leadoff single to Chico Walker. He walked No. 8 hitter Todd Hundley on five pitches. And after pitcher Sid Fernandez sacrificed, Boston hit a hanging curveball up the middle for a 2-0 lead.

It was the only beginning. Bobby Bonilla, whose season was revived during his four-day stay in San Diego with two homers and seven RBIs, hit a two-run homer into the right-field seats in the third inning. Eddie Murray hit a three-run homer into the seats in the fourth inning.

Two fastballs. Two homers. Five more runs. No more Harris.

It was the ninth home run Harris has allowed in the last 23 innings. He has allowed only six fewer homers this season than he did all of last year.

“I’ve got no one to blame but myself,” Harris said. “The hardest part of the situation is that we’re playing good, and I’m putting us in the hole.”

The Padres, who rallied from a 6-0 deficit in Harris’ last start to beat Pittsburgh, 10-9, couldn’t repeat the feat against Fernandez. Although he gave up solo homers to Santiago, Gary Sheffield and Darrin Jackson, Fernandez (3-4) was in command the entire game. He struck out 10 batters in seven innings and allowed only six hits in all.

The Padres have won only three times in Harris’ nine starts this season. Of course, he also was winless in two of his starts in which he allowed only one earned run in eight innings.

“Mentally, that’s the toughest thing,” Benes said, “looking at the stats and seeing you have only one win. It doesn’t matter how well you pitched, if you don’t get a win, it’s just not the same.”

Harris, Padre Manager Greg Riddoch said, is in no danger of being removed from the rotation. They already have one reliever (Jose Melendez) starting now, and considering that the Padres’ 3.97 ERA is the second-worst in the National League, Riddoch is in no mood for experimenting.

Harris will search for answers today when he studies videotape of his games of last year. He wants to pitch a simulated game this weekend instead of pitching on the side. He even has a self-help book he plans to read.

“It’s a lonely man’s game when you’re going like this,” Harris said. “I’m not at a point where I’ve lost all confidence, but I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t hurt.

“There are times when humility sets in, and I feel pretty humble right now.”