Padres Hang On and Send Reds to a 12-8 Defeat

CINCINNATI —  The funniest thing happened to the Padres’ eight-run lead Thursday night.

It took three pitchers. And one injured player. And a ninth-inning sacrifice bunt by one of their top two home run hitters. And enough tension to make a manager openly worry about his hair color.

But the funniest thing happened: The Padres held on to win.

They defeated the Reds, 12-8, to salvage the final game of this three-game series, if not their sense of humor.

“We’re leading, 12-4, and we have to get the last hitter of the game out or the tying run comes to the plate?” Manager Larry Bowa said. “Now I know why managers are all gray. I’m convinced these guys are trying to tease me. They’re saying, ‘Let’s get Larry a little riled up.’

“There is a never a laugher on this team. There is no such thing.”

Bowa was so frustrated at game’s end he had his hat down over his eyes. He couldn’t watch Goose Gossage pitch to No. 9 hitter Terry McGriff with two out, runners on first and second, and the top of the Reds’ order coming up.

Gossage, who had been forced into a suddenly close game with one out in the eighth, struck out McGriff to end the game. He had also struck out Eric Davis and Dave Parker in the eighth to end a rally.

“We got the big lead and I thought to myself, ‘Do not relax,’ ” Gossage said. “We’ve lost two or three like that this year. And games like that haunt you.

“In games like this, you let down your guard, the next thing you know, you’ve just got a one-run lead and you’re facing the tying run. We could have lost this game easy . This year, this kind of thing is happening all over the league.”

The Padres could have lost it just as they lost an 11-2 lead in Atlanta earlier this season. Or lost a 7-0 lead in Chicago.

Tony Gwynn remembered. He pulled up after a fourth-inning single with back spasms. But later, when Bowa wanted to remove him, he refused to leave.

“He told me, ‘The last time you took me out, we led 11-2 and lost the game,’ ” Bowa said. “I said, ‘You’re right.’ ”

“No way I’m leaving,” said Gwynn, whose back was heavily wrapped afterward, but who said he would play today in Houston. “I do not forget Atlanta.”

And Bowa remembered. The weary manager was trying to add to his 12 runs in the ninth inning after Marvell Wynne led off with an infield single. Bowa ordered John Kruk, with his .340 average, 11 homers and 48 RBIs, to sacrifice Wynne to second. Kruk bunted into a fielder’s choice, forcing Wynne at second, but Red Manager Pete Rose had seen enough.

“Pete was over there laughing at me,” Bowa said. “I told him, ‘I could have used that run!’ We get 24 runs in three games and we’re lucky to get one win. I know they’re a good hitting team, but honestly . . .

“I’m just glad to get out of town.”

In the three games, the Padres scored 24 runs on 36 hits. The problem was, they allowed the Reds 32 runs on 46 hits.

And that problem was not any more evident than Thursday night, when Padre starting pitcher Jimmy Jones, 23, hit his first homer since the next-to-last game of his high school career. It was the Padres’ first homer by a pitcher in more than a season. It drove in two runs to give the Padres a 4-1 lead in the second.

A seven-run Padre fifth inning, featuring five walks and with runs scoring on a wild pitch, an infield single and a fielder’s choice, among other things, gave Jones a 12-4 lead.

One inning and two runs later, Bowa was so frustrated he pulled Jones. But not without his most unusual mound visit this season.

After Jones allowed a leadoff homer to Nick Esasky in the sixth and then walked Kurt Stillwell, Bowa approached him. Other infielders began to gather, as is traditional, but suddenly Bowa was shooing them away, telling them to mind their own business. He wanted it to be just him and the kid.

“I didn’t want anybody else hearing what I wanted to tell Jimmy,” Bowa said.

Said Jones: “He told me he didn’t care what the next guy (McGriff) did, even hit a homer, as long as I went after him hard.”

McGriff singled to left and Bowa was immediately back on the mound and his pitcher was gone. Jones had already been involved in losing that 11-2 lead in Atlanta, and he lost a 5-0 lead against Houston, so Bowa was taking no chances.

“I’m going to keep giving him every opportunity,” said Bowa, who has constantly been frustrated with what he sees as Jones’ lack of a killer instinct. “Maybe we’re bumping our heads against the wall; maybe he really is a long reliever. But at the end of the season, no way he’s going to say he didn’t have a chance.”

Padre Notes

As expected, starter Andy Hawkins has been placed on the 15-day disabled list, retroactive to July 26, with continued tendinitis in his right shoulder. “They (doctors) hope the couple of weeks of rest will help,” Manager Larry Bowa said. “They don’t want him touching a ball, and they’ll see what happens then.” In his place, in a rather bold stroke, the Padres will bring up and start 23-year-old left-hander Eric Nolte from Double-A Wichita, where he was 4-2 with a 2.88 ERA in 10 starts after beginning the year at Class-A Reno.