Dodgers Must Gwynn, Bear It : Former Dodger Chris Gwynn Leads Padres to Division Title

The Dodgers sat on the bench, almost too numb to move, watching the sight on the field.

There were the San Diego Padres, running from the bench, running from the bullpen, seemingly from every crevice at Dodger Stadium to congregate on the mound and wildly celebrate.

Extraordinary as it may sound, and as painful to the senses as it may be to the Dodgers, the Padres are the 1996 National League West champions.

The Padres, needing to sweep the Dodgers to win the West, accomplished what appeared to be the unimaginable when they accomplished their feat with a 2-0, 11-inning victory in front of a sellout crowd of 53,270 at Dodger Stadium.

The man of the hour, ironically, was Chris Gwynn, the pinch-hitter who was born and raised in the Dodger organization but was cast aside in the off-season. Gwynn hit a two-run, no-out double off Dodger reliever Chan Ho Park, giving the Padres only their second division title in franchise history.

“People are going to be walking away from this series,” Padre right fielder Tony Gwynn said, “saying, ‘Those Padre guys, they don’t quit.’ A lot of people thought we’d fold down the stretch. A lot of people wrote us off. We showed all of those people something.”

The Padres celebrated with a rowdy clubhouse party, dousing anyone and everyone who walked into the clubhouse with champagne. Considering they have waited 12 years to win a division championship, and have been considered little more than an afterthought to the Dodgers, who can blame them?

“I told you it was going to happen here,” screamed Davey Lopes, Padre first base coach, a former Dodger. “They did it to us last year at our place. Now, it was our turn, baby.”

The Dodgers still are in the playoffs, but they will go as the wild-card team, opening Wednesday at Dodger Stadium in a best-of-five series against the World Series champion Atlanta Braves.

“I don’t think the players consider themselves ‘winning’ the wild card,” Padre first baseman Wally Joyner said. “We won the West. This wasn’t a meaningless game to us, I don’t care what anybody says.”

The Dodgers, who spent much of Saturday downplaying the significance of the season-finale since both teams already were in the playoffs, hardly looked like a team satisfied with merely getting into the playoffs.

One look at the faces of Dodger Manager Bill Russell and Fred Claire, Dodger executive vice president, who walked into the wild, raucous Padre clubhouse to offer congratulations, and it was obvious this was not merely another game.

“It mattered, definitely it mattered, it mattered a whole lot,” Dodger shortstop Greg Gagne said. “We wanted to win the West Division. We had a chance to win the division, and we didn’t.”

“We’re still happy to be in the playoffs, but we’re just not real happy about the way you get in.”

Said Dodger reliever Scott Radinsky: “Yahoo, we’re in the playoffs. I’d rather be jumping around on the field and celebrating like those guys than going in this way.”

Ramon Martinez, who will pitch Game 1 on Wednesday for the Dodgers, was used for only one inning Sunday. Yet, the Dodgers kept their regulars in for the entire game. Catcher Mike Piazza, who originally was planning to take the day off, played nine innings.

“To me, if they said that [it was meaningless],” Padre third baseman Ken Caminiti said, “they were just looking for a way out.”

The Dodgers, who went a month without losing consecutive games, suddenly find themselves reeling. They have lost four consecutive games, equaling their season-high.

“They’re in trouble, they’re in real trouble,” one Padre coach said.

The Dodgers [90-72] say they will emotionally recover with the day off. Besides, they beat Atlanta in seven of the 12 games this season. Some players even insisted they will now have the advantage playing the Braves in a best-of-five series instead of best-of-seven.

“You got to go through Atlanta anyway to get to the World Series,” said Dodger second baseman Delino DeShields. “I figure now is as good a time as any. I’d rather play those boys in a short series than a long series. We just need to regroup and take it from there.”

The Dodgers, who figured all along this last week that they would be playing the St. Louis Cardinals, now have the unenviable task of facing John Smoltz, Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine. Together, once this year’s voting is completed, they will have won the last six Cy Young Awards.

“If you’re scared, you don’t need to be in the game,” said Dodger center fielder Wayne Kirby, who was on the Cleveland Indian team that lost last season to Atlanta in the World Series. “They’re human, just like we are. They’ve got to eat. They’ve got to put food on the table, just like we’ve got to put food on the table.

“Hey, if they think we’re scared of them, they’re wrong.”

The trouble, of course, is that the Dodgers also learned that the Padres never were scared of them.

The Padre pitching staff completely shut down the Dodger offense. The Dodgers scored only four runs in 29 innings, batting .168 with only three extra-base hits. The vaunted middle of the lineup--Piazza, Eric Karros and Raul Mondesi--combined for one run batted in and one extra-base hit.

“They just flat-out beat us,” Karros said. “We have no excuses. I’m just very frustrated right now. For everybody on the field, and everybody in the stands, we wanted to win this darn thing. And we didn’t get it done.

“Believe me, this is the worst I’ve felt after a game all year.”

If the Padre pitching staff can dominate the Dodgers, what will the Braves’ Who’s Who of pitchers do to them?

“Don’t count [the Dodgers] out,” Russell said. “We know we can beat them. And we have beaten them.

“We match up well, and now we’re going to have two days off and open at home in a short series. Who’s not to say we’ll be better off? Every team’s goal is to get to the playoffs and win the World Series. It doesn’t matter how you get there, as long as you get there. And we’re in.”

The unknown, of course, is just how the last four games will affect the Dodgers. They had no doubts they would win one of the three games against the Padres, and figured they’d win when they had runners on first and second with no outs in the ninth. Yet, Piazza struck out and Karros grounded into a double play.

In the 11th, Steve Finley led off with a single off Park. Caminiti followed with a single to right on a hit-and-run, advancing Finley to third. Chris Gwynn, who’s hitting .178 this season, stepped to the plate. He belted a 1-and-1 change-up into the right-center-field gap, and the Padres went bonkers.

“I waited all year for a hit like this,” Chris Gwynn said. “The fans down there [in San Diego] can feel this. They can taste this. They’ve been waiting for this for so long.

“Even with my long association with the Dodgers, I’m glad to have a small part in giving this to San Diego.”