Padres Can’t Strike Back as Cincinnati ‘Clinches’ Second

When it was over Monday night, when Carmelo Martinez killed yet another potential Padre rally with a pop fly to left, when the Reds clinched second place with an 8-7 victory, the public address announcer spoke.

It’s the Reds and the Padres here at 7:30 tomorrow night . . . We hope.

But there is no hope among the Padres, who dedicated this season to their fans and who will probably now take their game away from them.

Terry Kennedy, the Padre player representative, the Padre who’s privy to negotiations daily, listed his travel plans. He is booked on three flights today to San Diego. Two of them are late. One is early.

“Hey, if I find out early (about a strike), I’m out of here,” he said.

And so maybe is the season.

In retrospect, it could not come at a better time, for the Padres have played as if they’ve been on strike for a month. On July 4, San Diego held a four-game lead over the Dodgers. Today, the Padres trail those Dodgers by seven.

And the Reds, who have followed the lead of their mentor and manager Pete Rose, are playing over their heads and ahead of the Padres. Rose, who singled Monday and is 24 hits shy of setting the major league hit record, saw Monday’s game as imperative, considering the strike threat.

His reasoning: What if the strike doesn’t end until right before the playoffs? And what if the Powers That Be decide they’ll take the first two teams in each division and have a playoff?

The Reds would be in second place.

With the score tied, 7-7, Ron Oester led off the fifth inning with a double against Padre reliever Roy Lee Jackson. Oester stole third, although replays showed he overslid the bag and was tagged out by Graig Nettles. Oester then scored the winning run on Dave Van Gorder’s fly to right.

The Reds lead the Padres by two games.

And the Padres reacted as they have in the last month, as if it didn’t matter. For whatever reasons, they are in a fog. Clearly, they are not the same team that won a pennant last year. And the way they lose tells one and all.

Monday, they led, 4-0, after two innings. Tim Flannery, starting pitcher Andy Hawkins, Garry Templeton and Tony Gwynn had the RBIs. But by the third, the game was tied.

And then Dave Parker, who went 4 for 5 and took over the National League lead in RBIs, hit a three-run homer in the fourth off Tim Stoddard. Hawkins, who later said “I just stunk,” was long gone.

Still, Steve Garvey, Nettles and Kennedy had RBIs in the fifth and the game was tied once again. In the ninth, when the Padres trailed by one, Garvey and Nettles had consecutive singles with one out. Bobby Brown, who pinch-ran for Garvey, moved to third when Kennedy forced Nettles with a ground out.

But Martinez, who had come up in an identical situation in Houston on Sunday night and had fouled off seven 3-and-2 pitches before being retired, hit the first pitch from reliever Ted Power to left fielder Nick Esasky to end it.

Theories abound as to why the Padres collapsed so suddenly. One was distraction of the strike.

“I don’t think that’s the cause of everything,” Kennedy said.

Obviously, the loss of Goose Gossage didn’t help, but the slump began way before then. Strangely, the Padres would get good pitching in a game, but wouldn’t score. The next game, they’d score runs, but their pitching would collapse. Luck envelops the sport of baseball.

There have been murmurs that Manager Dick Williams should not have made his post-All Star Game statement that each game would be played like the “last game of the playoffs.” Since he said that, the Padres have won six and lost 12.

“Since Dick’s meeting, we’ve been horse manure,” Kurt Bevacqua said Monday. “But that’s coincidence. We could be 7-0 on this road trip.”

But Bevacqua had another theory, that the Padres figured winning the division would be too easy.

“I’ve never been on a good team that’s been that bad that long,” he said. “ . . . But we got to a point where we thought we were indispensable. Hopefully, reality is setting in now, and I think it is. We thought we’d walk away with it, well, not walk away, but win the division by just going out and playing baseball. And you just can’t do that.

“We didn’t think that at the beginning of the season, or even after the first month and a half. But about a month ago, that happened. We didn’t think we could go on a bad losing streak. Now, we know it’s possible.”

But is it too late to rectify? Ed Wojna, a rookie pitcher, said after the game: “I’m kind of looking at my locker. I suddenly realized I may not be playing again.”

Bobby Brown ripped off his jersey and unveiled a T-shirt that said “Go ahead and strike” on the front and “Football starts Aug. 10” on the back.

Hope? Where?

Padre Notes Two hours before Monday’s game, Terry Kennedy ordered everyone out of the clubhouse but the players. They opened the doors 30 minutes later, and Kennedy explained that he’d explained the strike procedure to the players. The strike would technically begin at game time tonight (4:35 PDT). He’d be in contact with the Player’s Assn., and he’d let them know how to proceed. All the players already are booked on flights home. “I’m speaking for myself, but I can live with this decision (to strike) whether I play again or not,” Kennedy said. “It’s a matter of principle. I believe my one vote was right. I’m willing to live with it even if I lose it all. We’re supposed to leave it better for the people who follow. We can’t be selfish.”