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Padres Complete Sweep : Baseball: Astros fall, 4-3. Sheffield leaves game with injury.

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

The three National League teams with better records than the Padres are the teams the Padres will see in the next 12 days.

No Houston Astros, whom the Padres beat, 4-3, Sunday for the fourth time in as many games. No San Francisco Giants, whom the Padres beat two out of three times at the beginning of this just-completed and near-perfect, seven-game home stand.

No anybody, but the best--the Atlanta Braves, Cincinnati Reds and Pittsburgh Pirates, in that order, await the Padres in their stadiums for successive three-game series over the next two weeks.

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In the National League West, the Padres (62-51) are seven games behind Atlanta, a 10-3 winner against the Dodgers Sunday, and 2 1/2 games behind Cincinnati, which lost to the Giants, 7-1.

“The best teams are playing the best teams,” Padre Manager Greg Riddoch said. “It’s fun. It’s exciting. It’s what baseball is all about.

“If you’re 20 games out, it isn’t fun. It’s fun for us. We’re ready for the challenge.”

The four-game sweep of the Astros gave the Padres a five-game winning streak as they head east. The Braves have won nine in a row and play the last-place Dodgers again today at 4:40 p.m. in Atlanta at just about the time the Padres are scheduled to arrive there.

It was the Padres’ second four-game sweep at home this season and their second against Houston in 15 months. They have beaten Houston 43 times in their last 52 games at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium, including all seven this season.

On Sunday, in front of 17,925, Jerald Clark and Craig Lefferts were most responsible for keeping the streak alive and allowing the Padres to continue to enjoy their best home stand (6-1) since going 8-1 from Aug. 25 to Sept. 3, 1989.

Clark, a right-handed-hitting left fielder, launched a game-deciding, two-run home run high into the air over left field before it fell between the stadium’s permanent wall and auxiliary fence and gave the Padres a 4-2 lead in the bottom of the eighth inning. It was Clark’s eighth home run of the season--two shy of his career high--and the Padres’ eighth in the series.

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That it came when it did provided a temporary salve for the Padres’ latest injury.

Moments before, the Padres’ lost their top batter, No. 1 RBI man and No. 2 home run hitter, Gary Sheffield, for the afternoon and possibly longer when he suffered a concussion after getting kicked in the head while sliding into second base. Sheffield was examined by team physician Dr. Jan Fronek and has been listed as day to day.

Though he did not figure in the decision, Lefferts allowed five hits and two runs in seven solid innings. He walked only one batter and struck out five, getting 69% of his pitches (64 of 93) over the plate.

Lefferts’ outing was a particularly welcome sight since he had allowed eight earned runs in his previous 8 2/3 innings.

“(Pitching coach Mike Roarke) and I had looked at a lot of film before this game, and I think that helped me stay with my mechanics a little better,” Lefferts said. “I felt I had better stuff the last two innings than early on.”

Early on--as in the first pitch of the game--Craig Biggio greeted Lefferts with a shot that landed seven rows up in the left-field seats.

“I’d been pitching him in the last few times I’ve faced him, and he was waiting for me this time. Nothing you can do about that,” said Lefferts, who retired the next nine in a row.

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Said Catcher Dan Walters: “It was early in the game. It didn’t mean that much. He went on to throw a great game. That’s the way it goes sometimes.”

It was the first time Walters had played since straining his right hamstring on July 29 against Cincinnati. Walters injured the hamstring rounding second on a single by Clark in the second inning 12 days ago and had to leave that game because of it. He was batting .281 with four home runs and 18 RBIs before the injury and smashed two doubles down the left-left line in his three at-bats Sunday.

With Lefferts giving way to a pinch-hitter in the seventh inning, Larry Andersen (1-0) came on in the eighth inning, retired the side in order and picked up his first victory since July 23, 1991.

Randy Myers pitched the ninth, survived three hits and one run, and came away with his ninth consecutive save, 25th overall, and third in this series. Even with a 4.70 ERA, Myers is third in the NL in saves, only one behind co-leaders Lee Smith of St. Louis and John Wetteland of Montreal.

Houston’s Doug Jones (8-8) took the loss, giving up Clark’s towering home run on a changeup in the eighth.

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