Pinch Homer Deflates Padres

ATLANTA — Padre right fielder Tony Gwynn looked up in the sky Thursday night, slammed his hand against the outfield fence and slowly walked off the field.

If it wasn’t painful enough to watch Damon Berryhill’s ninth-inning, pinch-hit homer that gave the Atlanta Braves a 4-3 victory over the Padres, he surveyed the scene of 38,319 fans tomahawking into the night.

Instead of running off the field like most of his teammates, it was as if Gwynn wanted to soak up the atmosphere at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

“I was just telling myself,” Gwynn said, “ ‘Please, God, let the last four games of the season mean something when we come back. Don’t let this one ruin us.’ ”

The defeat, snapping the Padres’ six-game winning streak and leaving them 6 1/2 games back in the National League West with 47 to play, seemed almost disastrous to their psyche. It was as if this was much bigger than another contest in a 162-game season.

If it were simply another game, reliever Larry Andersen, who surrendered the game-winning homer, would not have been sitting almost inconsolable in front of his locker.

And if it were simply another game, starter Andy Benes would have hung around to joke about his first home run in nearly two years, instead of wondering why he didn’t strike out a single batter in his six-inning stint.

“You could tell they took it pretty hard,” said Atlanta third baseman Terry Pendleton, whose three-run homer in the first inning proved instrumental. “That’s a big two-game swing right there. We needed that one just for breathing room.”

Andersen (1-1), who had allowed only one home run since July 4, 1990, appeared to be most devastated. He answered round after round of questions, then retreated to the dining room where teammates attempted to provide solace.

“There’s no consolation,” Andersen said softly. “There can’t be any consolation when you throw a pitch like that and lose the game. It’s not the end of the world, but you can’t let a game get away like that.

“We had a chance to get within 4 1/2 games, and now we’re 6 1/2 again. At this point of the season, that’s tough.

“But if I was perfect, I wouldn’t have spent 10 years in the minor leagues.”

This indeed was a game the Padres (63-52) thought they should have won. After coming back from a 3-0 deficit on Benes’ homer in the third and a two-run shot by McGriff in the sixth, they believed they were in store for perhaps their most important victory of the season.

Instead, they not only lost on Berryhill’s homer--on a 2-and-2 slider that remained on the inside part of the plate--but provided former Padre Mark Davis with his first NL victory since Sept. 13, 1989.

Davis, who left San Diego after winning the Cy Young during the 1989 season and flopped during 2 1/2 years in Kanas City, entered the game in the ninth inning. There were two outs and Tim Teufel was on first base.

Davis’ woes began immediately. Oscar Azocar slapped a single to right field, advancing Teufel to second. Two pitches later, Davis threw a wild pitch that put runners on second and third.

Suddenly, Davis found himself down 3-1 in the count to Tony Fernandez. The crowd was booing. The Padre bench was bracing themselves for a celebration.

Davis’ next pitch was a fastball high and away. Fernandez slammed the pitch to the right side of the infield. Maybe if it went another foot or two to the right of second baseman Mark Lemke, it would have been a two-run single. Instead, Lemke scooped it up and kept the game tied.

It proved to be the game-saver.

“I was just hoping to get us off the field,” said Davis, pitching against his former teammates for the first time in three years. “The only thing that felt strange was there’s a whole lot more fans in the stands than the last time I pitched here with the Padres.”

The Braves (68-44) now begin a seven-game trip to Pittsburgh and Montreal, and the Padres can only hope that someone can knock them off before they meet again in September.

“It was a tough loss, there’s no doubt about that,” Gwynn said. “We’ve been trying to come back all year long it almost doesn’t seem right if we got close. We’ve got to get over this one real quick and forget about it.”

If nothing else, the Braves certainly won’t be forgetting about the Padres any time soon. Although Cincinnati is in second place, the Braves appear to be more worried about the Padres.

“I’m telling you, that’s a damn good team,” Atlanta Manager Bobby Cox said. “They can scare anyone. We know they’re going to be around.

“And my God, how about (Gary) Sheffield? I look at him, and I swear I’m looking at Willie Mays or Hank Aaron. I’ve never seen bat speed like that in my life. I don’t know when’s the last time I’ve seen a guy swing the bat like that.

“Really, he may be the best I’ve seen since Mays.”

Sheffield had three hits, achieving his eighth consecutive multiple-hit game, and raising his batting average to a league-leading .341. The only trouble was that only once was a player on base when Sheffield was at the plate.

The Padres trailed 3-0 before the Braves even sent their fourth batter to the plate. Benes struggled with his control and paid the price by giving up the three-run homer to Pendleton.

Benes woke up the offense himself with a solo homer off Charlie Leibrandt in the third--his first since Aug. 27, 1991. Then, with two outs in the sixth, the Padres went the more conventional route when McGriff hit a two-run homer deep over the center field wall.