PADRES UPDATE : NOTEBOOK / BOB NIGHTENGALE : Harris, Victim of One Bad Inning, Frustrated by Own Inconsistency

Padre starter Greg Harris has quit trying to figure out his season. He said he has no other choice if he wants to retain his sanity.

“I’ve always known this is an unpredictable game,” Harris said, “but this is crazy.”

Harris lasted only five innings Friday in the Padres’ 7-5, 14-inning victory over the Chicago Cubs, and once again was victimized by one inning.

This time, Harris couldn’t overcome the fourth inning, yielding four runs and four hits. Only the Padres’ three-run ninth inning prevented Harris from falling to 2-7, but his ERA still ballooned to 4.45.

“I’m just in a mental lapse right now,” said Harris, making his third start since coming off the disabled list. “My concentration is there, but to stay focused the whole game is difficult.

“I get my (rear) kicked in an inning, and it’s like that’s what it takes to get focused again.

“It’s been that type of year, just kind of like my performances--in and out.”

The Padres have obtained 22-year-old shortstop Ricky Gutierrez as the player to be named from the Baltimore Orioles in the Craig Lefferts trade.

Gutierrez, who has spent five seasons in the Oriole organization, batted .253 with no homers and 41 RBIs. In fact, he has not hit a homer in three years and has only six in his career.

Gutierrez will join the Padres’ Class AAA team in Las Vegas this weekend and will be part of the Padres’ 40-man roster. Reliever Rafael Valdez was taken off the roster to make room for Gutierrez, but cleared waivers and was outrighted to Las Vegas.

What was it about the St. Louis Cardinals that allowed them to limit Gary Sheffield to a .103 batting average this season?

“I don’t think there’s any rhyme or reason for it,” said Merv Rettenmund, Padre hitting coach. “If anything, they pitched him more inside. I think it was just a case where they faced him when he had a bad finger earlier in the year, and their ballpark just isn’t conducive to our ballclub.”

Although Padre pitching coach Mike Roarke is quite familiar with pitcher Jose DeLeon in the Cardinal organization, the Padres have decided that they have no interest in picking him up after he released Monoday by the Cardinals.

DeLeon, who was 16-12 and led the league in strikeouts in 1989, has won only eight of his last 61 starts, going 14-35.

DeLeon instead is expected to be picked up by the Philadelphia Phillies, who already have employed 23 pitchers this season.

San Francisco Giant second baseman Robbie Thompson on sustaining no hurricane damage on his home in West Palm Beach, Fla.: “I was 100 miles from the eye. We just got high wind and rain. Heck, we have similar weather out here at Candlestick.” . . . Texas Rangers Manager Toby Harrah on the suspicion that White Sox coach Joe Nossek might be stealing his signs: “How can he when our own players can’t even get them?” . . . When Atlanta pitcher Charlie Leibrandt recorded his 1,000th strikeout Sunday, he as so excited that he rolled the ball into the dugout as a keepsake. There was on problem. He forgot to call time, allowing Ricky Jordan to advance from first to second on the throw. . . . If Seattle Mariners pitcher Dave Fleming, 15-7, wins the Rookie of the Year award, he’ll become the first pitcher from a last-place team ever to win the award in the American League. Tom Seaver and Carl Morton were the only pitchers from a last-place team to win the National League’s Rookie of the Year award. . . . The Philadelphia Phillies are expected to go after Reds starter Greg Swindell in the free agent market. . . . Although owners continue to predict that escalating salaries cannot continue, certainly Cal Ripken Jr. has his suspicions. Although he signed a five-year contract worth $30.5 million, there’s a clause in his contract that allows him to re-open his contract after the 1995 season. . . . Ripken’s contract will pay him roughly 79 times what Lou Gehrig made in his entire 15-year career in which he earned $386,400. . . . The Boston Red Sox have dropped hints that they’ll go after former Padre Joe Carter in this year’s free-agent market.