Padre Notebook : Martinez Hurting and Not Hitting, So Wynne’s Still in

He couldn’t sprint.

So Carmelo Martinez walked over to Manager Steve Boros and shook his head. “Can’t go,” he said.

Boros walked over to Marvell Wynne and told him, “Go.”

Wynne again started in center field Tuesday night.

Martinez again sat on the bench.

“Yeah, it’s my knee,” he said. “I tried running, but I couldn’t. Give me another day. But there was less pain today. What did the doctor call it? Tendinitis. It’s an inflammation down there. It used to happen a lot to me when I played on AstroTurf.

“But I’m not ready to play. What if I have to run from first to home? I don’t know how long I can sprint?”

He took batting practice anyway. Boros was the pitcher. “Thattaway, Mellow,” he was saying. Later, Martinez, Boros and hitting coach Deacon Jones held a meeting. Boros and Jones did all the talking.

“They say I’m jumping,” Martinez said. “They want me to stay back. They said: ‘You were doing it right in spring training.’ I said: ‘I know.’ Now, I just have to do it.”

Martinez has struck out 11 times in seven games.

“Too many times,” he said.

Catcher Bruce Bochy won Monday night’s game by hitting a home run on one healthy knee.

His right one.

His left knee (twisted on Sunday) wasn’t operative.

But he came in to pinch-hit in the 11th inning Monday night because Boros had no one else. Harry Dunlop, the bench coach, called down to the bullpen and asked Bochy if he could hit.

“I can hit, but I can’t run,” Bochy said.

Dunlop: “You can’t run anyway.”

So Bochy went up there thinking home run.

“I at least had to get it in the air,” he said.

It landed over the fence.

He limped around the bases, made it to plate and made it to the doctor Tuesday morning.

Fluid was drained.

“It’s not as serious as we thought,” Boros said.

Bochy could’ve played Tuesday night, but only as a pinch-hitter. He still couldn’t run.

“I told him if he hits tonight (Tuesday), he can only hit a home run, or he can’t hit at all,” Boros said. “That’s the deal.”

A good question: If there’s no Bochy, who’s the backup catcher?

Martinez.

“I’ll do anything to stay in the lineup,” Martinez said. “I can catch the ball, but I don’t know about throwing it.”

John Kruk’s RBI single in the 10th set up Bochy’s heroics.

It was Kruk’s first major league hit. Previously, he was 0 for 3.

“Did you ever think it (the first hit) was gonna come? I didn’t. I told (Graig) Nettles, I thought I’d get my first hit when I was his age (41).”

Here’s what he was thinking during the at-bat:

“Nothing,” he said, pointing to his brain. “You know there’s nothing up there. . . . Well, I wasn’t thinking about what I was going to do after the game. It was tough to think with so many people yelling.”

Will he ever forget hit No. 1?

“No, never. I’ve been kind of like in my own world not being able to get that first hit,” he said. “I was kind of panic stricken. (Tim) Flannery threatened to kill me if I didn’t calm down.”

“You can’t help but like the kid,” Boros said. “He knows his place and takes the ribbing well does. But when he plays, he’s like a veteran.”

Notes

Pitcher LaMarr Hoyt still isn’t throwing major league breaking balls as of yet, so Manager Steve Boros has not been tempted to use him. Maybe he will this weekend in San Francisco . . . Boros said he will rest some starters against the Giants, but, right now, he’s not quite sure whom.