Padres Are Honored Just to Be Back Home

With a crowd of more than 60,000 expected, the San Diego Padres will raise the 1998 NL pennant at Qualcomm Stadium and the players will receive their league championship rings before their home opener today against the Colorado Rockies.

The Padres could use a kick-start after their anemic showing in an 8-2 loss to the Rockies Sunday night in Monterrey, Mexico.

Some Padres, including batting star Tony Gwynn, weren’t thrilled at having to make a 2,000-mile round trip to play the opener as the “home” team.

“You only have one opener,” Gwynn said before Sunday’s game. “In our case we were supposed to open at home. That’s what you’re supposed to do, you’re supposed to raise the flag, get your rings, kind of celebrate what happened here last year, the start of something new this year. We’ve got to do it on Tuesday.”

Andres Galarraga, sitting out the season while being treated for back cancer, threw out the ceremonial first pitch before the Braves’ opener.

Galarraga performed the ceremony from his home in West Palm Beach, Fla. Surrounded by two of his three daughters, Katherine and Andria, Galarraga tossed the ball toward a camera that was broadcasting live to the center-field video board at Turner Field in Atlanta.

Eddie Perez, one of Galarraga’s closest friends, crouched behind the plate, a ball already in his glove. After Galarraga threw, Perez got up and displayed the ball to the cheering crowd as if it had traveled across two states.

Opening day wasn’t a thrill for St. Louis Cardinal players Ray Lankford and David Howard, who were placed on the 15-day disabled list Monday.

Lankford, who hit .293 with 31 homers and 105 runs batted in last season, has been slow to recover from knee surgery performed in November and played only two games as a designated hitter this spring. Howard had won the second-base job until he pulled a groin muscle in his final spring at-bat Saturday.

“I’ve wanted to start forever and finally was told I was going to,” Howard said. “Then to do it in the last inning of the last spring game, it’s really disappointing. I wish I wouldn’t have run as hard.”

Infielders Placido Polanco and Luis Ordaz, who had been optioned to triple-A Memphis on Saturday, were recalled.

Rookie J.D. Drew, whose best position is center field, will replace Lankford in center for the first week or so. Polanco started the opener at second base.

Mark Wohlers, trying to rebound from a disastrous season, walked four batters and gave up two runs in two-thirds of an inning as the Atlanta Braves lost their opener to Philadelphia, 7-4. Afterward, he cursed at reporters in the clubhouse.

Wohlers, who saved 97 games for the Braves from 1995-97, had a 10.18 earned-run average for the Braves last season.