Padre Starting Pitchers Might Finish the Team

Remember that old story about the punchless Koufax-Drysdale Dodgers?

You know, the Dodgers send Don Drysdale to the next city to rest for a start the next day and, meanwhile, Sandy Koufax throws a no-hitter.

Advised of his teammate’s no-hitter, Drysdale dead-pans: “That’s nice, but did he win?”

The Padres are a little like that, only in reverse.

On Sunday, for example, Fred McGriff hit his 12th home run and had an RBI double and Gary Sheffield extended his hitting streak to a 17 games and equaled the major league season high.

However, in case you wondered, they didn’t win.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but the Padre Starting Pitcher--that’s Starting Pitcher, capital S, capital P, as in generic Starting Pitcher--left them with too steep a hill to climb. Indeed, the Padre offense has so many uphill climbs it needs a Sherpa guide rather than a manager.

The Chicago Cubs scored two runs in the first, another in the second and two more in the fifth. When Sunday’s Starting Pitcher, one Jose Melendez, left the game, the score was 5-0. That this team was able to get close before losing, 6-4, was a tribute to its offense . . . and its relief pitching.

After Sunday’s debacle, Padre Starting Pitchers had a combined record of 14-18 and earned run average of 4.53. Relief pitchers, in contrast, were 9-3 with a 2.99 ERA.

The normal scenario, thus, is that the Starting Pitchers dig a hole and the relief pitchers try to keep it from getting deeper while the hitters try to claw their way to fresh air. Digger Phelps should be a Padre Starting Pitcher. Most guys who are so adept at burials have pasty white skin and dress in black.

Melendez is on both the good and bad side of this pitching mystery. He started--whoops, wrong choice of words--the season as a relief pitcher and was 4-0 with a 1.37 earned run average in that role. When Dave Eiland, the No. 5 starter at the beginning of the season, went onto the disabled list with back spasms and a swollen earned run average, Melendez became the No. 5 starter and has since gone 0-3 with an 8.59 ERA.

It should be no surprise that Melendez, the 1991 version, was 5-3, 3.90 as a starter and 3-2, 2.35 as a reliever. Who says history isn’t redundant?

Between them in 1992, No. 5 Starting Pitchers Eiland and Melendez are a combined 0-5 with a 7.71 ERA. Eiland, you see, was 0-2, 7.00 when he went out. His impending return would be hard to parallel with the cavalry riding to the rescue in an old western film.

Lest these poor chaps laboring in the No. 5 spot in the rotation be vilified as the only culprits of the piece, further examination reveals that Andy Benes is the only Starting Pitcher who has pitched respectably and has the numbers to prove it. Benes has a 5-3 record with a 3.25 ERA. You expect better of Benes, of course, and you will get it.

The Other Starting Pitchers--Bruce Hurst, Greg Harris and Craig Lefferts--have been in mixups.

We’ll take them in order of expectations . . .

* Hurst, the solid veteran, is 2-0 with a 0.00 earned run average against his New York Pets but 1-4 with a 5.40 ERA against the remainder of the league.

* Harris, the young lion with the career ERA of 2.34, is a fangless 1-4 with a 5.03 ERA.

* Lefferts, trying to translate bullpen magic into the starting rotation, is 5-2 in spite of a 4.25 ERA.

You expect better of all these guys too, and the likelihood is that you will get it. They are too good to be so bad.

However, it is scary right now. This team is hanging tough against the San Francisco Giants in a battle for first place when it has had the hitting to be on top by a few games instead of merely hanging tough. The hitting, particularly at the top of the order, can’t stay that hot . . . can it?

Greg Riddoch, the virtuously patient manager, was pressed for solutions in Sunday’s aftermath, but stayed remarkably calm and philosophical.

“If we had ideas to unlock,” he said, “we would have unlocked them a long time ago.”

In the meantime, the Padres might try scouting that “fastest pitcher in the West” booth at the stadium for a guy who can throw a baseball fast enough that it would get a speeding ticket in a school zone. Anyone who has a knuckleball he (or she) has perfected throwing tennis balls against the garage door might be of interest as well.

Another solution would be to let Randy Myers or Mike Maddux or Rich Rodriguez go out and pitch maybe 1 2/3 innings at the beginning of the game and then bring in Harris or Hurst or Melendez.

If your pitchers can’t fool the hitters, maybe you can fool the pitchers.