Hitchcock Wants to End the Suspense

The San Diego Padres are in trouble in the World Series, which will end sooner than they expected unless things change quickly.

The New York Yankees have a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series, having overwhelmed the Padres in New York.

San Diego appeared shaken after its Game 2 loss Sunday at Yankee Stadium, and the Padres acknowledge they’re concerned with Game 3 coming up tonight at Qualcomm Stadium.

These are difficult days for the National League champions.

The Padres are counting on pitcher Sterling Hitchcock, scheduled to start in this pivotal game, to continue his impressive postseason performance, which is asking a lot.

The left-hander has been better than expected through his stirring run, defeating many of the game’s high-profile pitchers while being selected the NL championship series’ most valuable player.

Hitchcock now faces his former team with his current employer’s survival on the line. He must help slow the Yankee offense, something his Padre colleagues haven’t done.

No team in major league history has overcome a 3-0 deficit to win a playoff series, and the Padres don’t want to travel that road. Hitchcock’s task seems daunting, and the stakes are high, which would be unnerving to some.

But Hitchcock welcomes his role in the unsettling Padre situation. Of course, he doesn’t have much choice now.

“When you have a job to do, you just have to go out and do it,” said Hitchcock, who has experienced mild flu-like symptoms the last few days. “You can’t worry about all the things you can’t control, you just have to go out and make your pitches, and try to keep your team in the game.

“My approach to every game is to go as deep as I can to keep us close, and that doesn’t change regardless [of the situation]. It doesn’t matter if we’re playing the Bad News Bears right now. It’s the World Series, it’s an opportunity to pitch in it, and that’s what you dream of as a kid.”

The Yankees definitely aren’t the Bad News Bears.

The American League champions established a league record with 114 victories in the regular season, and are 9-2 in the playoffs.

They have pounded the Padre staff, getting 25 hits and 18 runs in two games. The Yankees scored seven runs in the seventh inning in Game 1, and had 16 hits in Game 2.

Welcome to the hot seat, Sterling Hitchcock.

“They can hit,” said Hitchcock, succinctly assessing the Yankees’ success. “Bottom line, they can hit. Obviously, 114 wins stacks up there pretty good.

“Put into a historical view, I would imagine that they would have to be one of the best [teams] ever. But I’m just going to have to stay within myself out there, get the ball over the plate, and go after people.”

Hitchcock has been doing that.

He proved himself in the National League playoffs, relying on an effective split-finger pitch while out-dueling his more celebrated counterparts.

The Padres’ No. 4 starter during most of the regular season, Hitchcock was selected the MVP of the championship series after going 2-0 with a 0.90 earned-run average in two starts. Overall, he is 3-0 with a 1.13 ERA and 25 strikeouts in 16 postseason innings.

Hitchcock defeated the Houston Astros’ Randy Johnson, and the Braves’ Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine. He will try to add New York’s David Cone to the list tonight.

“He’s shown what courage is all about, going out there and giving us the type of performance he has,” Padre Manager Bruce Bochy said. “He has just been better and better each start, at a time we really needed him to be.”

The journeyman built on his success in the regular season, where he was 9-7 with a career-low 3.93 ERA.

Hitchcock, 27, credits Padre pitching coach Dave Stewart for much of his success, teaching him to throw the splitter effectively and building his confidence.

“Beating the guys he beat [in the playoffs], he can’t fool anybody anymore,” Stewart said. “He can’t fool anybody, saying he doesn’t expect to win. He expects to win now.”

The Yankees have noticed.

They included Hitchcock in the five-player Tino Martinez deal with the Seattle Mariners in 1995. But Hitchcock is not the pitcher they traded away.

“He is very aggressive right now,” Yankee Manager Joe Torre said of Hitchcock, whom Seattle traded to San Diego in ’96 for pitcher Scott Sanders.

“He stays down, he moves the ball around, throws a good curveball. [Tonight’s game] is going to be about command and control, and getting ahead of the hitters. If he can get ahead of the hitters, he can get you out a number of ways.

“We have a patient ballclub, that’s pretty much what we do, so we’re going to have to wait and see. But, no question about it, he has had a lot of success in the postseason, which will give him a lot of confidence.”

Hitchcock is no longer troubled by his Yankee experience.

“I made every pitch in New York like it was my last one because I could be optioned out any day, basically,” Hitchcock said. “There is pressure in that situation because you never know if you’re going to be there from one day to the next.

“But I also think it helped form me into a stronger pitcher and, certainly, I thank them for the opportunity to even bring me up to the big leagues. I came up at 21, and I’m very thankful for that.”