Padres, McGriff Manage to Get In Last Word, Run : Baseball: Padres strike early and then hold on to beat the San Francisco Giants, 6-5.

Fred McGriff entered the Padre clubhouse Monday afternoon as if it were just another day. There was not even the slightest hint of anger.

Hmm, Trevor Wilson was starting for the San Francisco Giants? Oh, you mean the guy who threw at McGriff the last time they met, starting a bench-clearing brawl in San Francisco? The brawl that put McGriff out a week because of bruised ribs and a four-day suspension?

That Trevor Wilson.

McGriff may have wanted to be coy, but his bat did the talking, leading the Padres to a 6-5 victory over the Giants at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

McGriff tied a career-high by hitting two home runs and driving in five runs . . . all off Wilson in only two at-bats.

McGriff never had a chance to make it three for three. The Padres drove Wilson out of the game before the fifth inning, and then had to hang on to win.

The Padres managed to blow a 5-0 lead, their biggest of the season, before winning the game in the eighth when the Giants failed to turn a double play on Benito Santiago’s grounder, which scored Tony Gwynn.

The victory also would not have been possible without the heroics of left fielder Jerald Clark. Will Clark led off the ninth with a line drive that was going over the left-field fence until Jerald Clark reached over the fence to snare it. That gave Randy Myers his 21st save of the season and made a winner out of Tim Scott (3-1).

“When I first hit it,” Will Clark said, “I thought it would hit the wall. What really made it a non-spectacular catch was that I hit it right at him. Also, (Clark) is about 6-4, so I pretty much had the odds going against me.”

It was Myers’s eighth consecutive save, his longest streak since June 15-July 15, 1990, when he saved nine in a row for the Cincinnati Reds.

Despite all the heroics, the star of the show still was McGriff.

McGriff, who had not faced Wilson since the June 18 brawl that started after he was hit by a pitch, had his moment of truth in the first inning.

He was at the plate with one out and Tony Fernandez and Tony Gwynn on base.

He was facing Wilson, who he believed purposely hit him with a pitch after yielding a grand slam to teammate Gary Sheffield.

“There was no doubt in my mind it was on purpose,” McGriff said, “none at all.”

McGriff, making sure not to be overeager, watched the first pitch sail down and away. Wilson had no choice but to come over the plate with a slider for a strike. McGriff couldn’t believe how good it felt when his bat made contact.

The ball soared 413 feet over the right-center-field fence.

The crowd of 15,624 screamed in delight, and McGriff’s teammates waited for him to celebrate in the dugout.

McGriff wasn’t done with Wilson.

He faced Wilson again in the third inning with one out and Gwynn on first base.

McGriff swung at the first pitch, a curveball, which went 349 feet into the left-field seats.

“I only threw him two strikes,” Wilson said, shaking his head, “and both went out of the ballpark.”

So, does Wilson still plan to talk to McGriff, and apologize as he vowed in June.

“I don’t want to talk to him anymmore,” Wilson said. “He’s proven his point.”

It was McGriff’s 16th two-homer game, and the third time in his career he had driven in five runs.

“It’s only fitting that the guy hit two dingers against the guy responsible for his exit for a few days,” Padre Manager Greg Riddoch said.

Said Gwynn, who went three for four: “That’s the best way to answer what happened in San Francisco, hit a couple of home runs.”

McGriff did not want a war of words. Instead, he let his bat do most of the talking.

“Hopefully, I’ve got a long career and we will face each other a lot of times,” McGriff said, who’s seven for 10 against Wilson. “The important thing was we won the game.”

McGriff’s heroics almost weren’t enough. Although the Padres were cruising along with a 5-0 lead after McGriff’s second home run, the Giants ended the laughter in just two innings off starter Frank Seminara and reliever Rich Rodriguez.

The Giants hammered Seminara for four runs and six hits in the fourth inning,leaving the game after yielding a season-high 11 hits in just 3 2/3 innings. It was the second-shortest outing of Seminara’s major league career.

The Giants, whose biggest hit was a double, sent nine batters to the plate in the fourth. Rodriguez prevented the Giants from tying the game in the fourth by retiring Mark Leonard on a fly ball to left, stranding two runners. The Giants, however, tied the game, 5-5, in the fifth on Chris James’ two-out single up the middle.

While the Padres allowed 14 hits in the first five innings, they managed to limit the Giants to just one baserunner in the final four innings--an infield single by Mike Felder. It provided the Padres a much-needed victory after their disastrous weekend in Los Angeles when they lost three out of four games to the Dodgers.

“We’re at the point now where we can’t worry about anyone but ourselves,” Riddoch said. “We’ve just got to win, and keep on winning.”