Padres Are Feeling Great, but Gwynn Hurting : A 9-1 Victory Over Pittsburgh Doesn’t Alleviate the Pain in Top Hitter’s Feet

SAN DIEGO —  Tony Gwynn slowly limped out of the Padre clubhouse Wednesday night. Though hesitant to talk about it, his heels are so sore that he hasn’t taken batting practice in two days. It hurts to even walk to the bathroom, let alone run in the outfield.

He has ice packs on his heels for hours before every game and has them iced down after each one. He believes they could be bone spurs, but why they’re bothering him now, he doesn’t know.

“All I know is that they’re killing me, just killing me,” he said, “and they’re not getting any better.”

Gwynn, wincing in pain as he put on his shoes, managed a weak smile and said, “But you know what? With the way we’re playing now, you’re going to have to kill me to get me out of there. I’ve waited too long for this.”

Indeed, after the Padres’ 9-1 victory Wednesday night over the Pittsburgh Pirates, their seventh in the past nine games, no one wants to leave the lineup.

Just listen to Bip Roberts, who had inherited the Padres’ starting third base job but has been out since Sunday with a pulled rib cage muscle: “If I don’t hurry and get back soon, they’re going to be calling me ‘Wally Bip.’ ”

Yes, believe it or not, the Padres are playing that well. They’re hitting. They’re pitching. They’re even playing defense.

“This is what I envisioned we’d do all along,” said Padre starter Ed Whitson, who won his 13th game of the season with a three-hit complete game. “This is what everybody expected us to do.

“It seemed like everybody we faced in the first half looked like Cy Young against us, but look at us now. Everybody’s relaxed and swinging the bat well.

“And, well, I don’t have to tell you about Jack Clark.”

Clark, who admits that there were times when he thought the Padres would be better off without him and questioned whether perhaps he was washed up as a hitter, once again was the man who ignited the offense.

After they went down one-two-three in the first inning, perhaps leaving the crowd of 14,349 wondering if their 17-4 victory Tuesday was a fluke, the Padres unleased their offense in the second.

Clark hit a double into right center, extending his hitting streak to 14 games. Chris James moved him to third on a groundout. And Roberto Alomar scored him on a deep fly ball to left.

“That was just perfect baseball,” Padre Manager Jack McKeon said. “They’ve realized now that this is the way to do it, and if we do it this way, we can win with it.

“So now when we’re not even caring about the home runs, all of a sudden we’re getting them.”

The Padres, who had as much success hitting home runs as a surfer trying to catch a wave at Lake Poway, hit two more homers Wednesday and now have four in the past five days.

There was James hitting another in the seventh inning, giving him 12 RBIs in the past six games. And there was Luis Salazar, the man who has stepped into the lineup for Roberts, hitting a two-run homer in the fifth, his first home run since June 12.

“We needed someone to get hot in back of Jack,” Whitson said, “and that’s exactly what Chris James is doing. If he stays hot, let me tell you, Jack Clark is going to terrorize some people.

“And when he starts hitting the long ball, ooh, some eyes are really going to open.”

Funny, but the man who has hit 266 career home runs, including 62 in the past two years, could care less if he hits another.

“I’m serious when I say this,” Clark said, “but I don’t care if I hit another home run the rest of my career. I didn’t think I’d ever say that, but I’m getting just as much satisfaction getting singles as anything else.”

Clark, who has had a hit in every game he’s played since June 24, is getting primarily singles and doubles these days. He has only one homer since June 19, but who cares? He is batting .407 during this streak.

“I’m not alibiing,” McKeon said, “but I think everybody was sitting back and waiting for Jack to do it. When he wasn’t, we didn’t adjust. Now, Jack’s not trying to hit the ball out of the park, not everybody’s counting on us, and look what’s happening.”

No need to remind the Pirates just what they ran into these past two nights, and no telling what Pirate Manager Jim Leyland would have in store for them after this debacle.

After losing 17-4 Tuesday, Leyland’s voice could be heard reverberating around the stadium in the kind of tirade last heard around these parts coming from Larry Bowa. Leyland called them every name a family newspaper couldn’t print and even some that “Rolling Stone” might hesitate to run. He called them a “watered-down version of an expansion team,” and as the Pirates will tell you, that’s about the nicest thing they had to say about them.

Even though this was a get-away game, and the Pirates aren’t scheduled to arrive home until 7 a.m. today, Leyland had his troops in full uniform working out at 2:30 beforehand. They spent the rest of the day napping on the floor in the visiting clubhouse.

The Padres outscored them, 24-1 and out-hit them, 28-3, in the last 13 1/2 innings they played?

“It’s like a whole different season,” Gwynn said, who got two hits and raised his average to .348. “All of us were struggling before--now with Jack and Chris hitting, you’re going to see the effect.

“It took a lot longer than we thought to get it all going, but now we’re clicking on all cylinders.”

Who would have figured?

Padre Notes

The Padres talked again Wednesday to the Chicago Cubs in attempts to acquire shortstop Shawon Dunston, but no offers or names were exchanged. Since the Padres and Cubs are at an apparent stalemate in their trade talks, the Texas Rangers would like to get in on the action. The Rangers are highly interested in Sandy Alomar Jr., the Padres’ triple-A catcher at Las Vegas, but the only two front-line players they’re offering are third baseman Steve Buechele and left fielder Pete Incaviglia. It’s conceivable that the clubs could work out at three-way deal, though the Padres are pessimistic. One possible scenario would have the Rangers sending prospects to the Cubs, including triple-A third baseman Scott Coolbaugh; Dunston going to the Padres and Alomar to the Rangers. But the Padres are asking for two front-line players in exchange for Alomar and would require an outfielder to along with Dunston. Coincidentally, the same three clubs, along with the Yankees, were involved in trade talks during the winter meetings that would have brought the Padres Dunston and Yankee third baseman Mike Pagliarulo. To obtain the players, the Padres would have given up Alomar, pitcher Greg Booker and infielder Dickie Thon. . . . Bob Sheppard, widely considered the greatest public-address announcer in all of baseball, announced the fourth inning of Wednesday’s game. Sheppard, the Yankees’ public-address announcer for the past 39 years, previously had announced games only at Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park, and Anaheim Stadium. . . . Pirate pitching coach Ray Miller on the Pirates’ 17-4 defeat Tuesday night: “It was the worst major league game I’ve ever seen, and believe me, I’ve seen a lot of them.”