Win Finally Comes Easily for Padre Pitcher Benes

CHICAGO —  Padre starter Andy Benes glanced at the lineup card Tuesday night in the clubhouse. He looked at the glamorous names in the Chicago Cubs’ lineup. He remembered how he never has beaten this team, recalling the miseries of opposing pitchers in these cozy confines of Wrigley Field.

Instead of showing fear, or even the slightest hint of apprehension, he shrugged his shoulders, walked away, feeling so good he almost felt like whistling.

The way Benes figured it, pitching against the Cubs was going to be a breeze compared to the stress and tension he endured Monday afternoon, and with that in mind, pitched one of the finest games of his career, leading the Padres to a 7-1 victory over the Cubs for their fifth consecutive victory.

Benes, pitching eight shutout innings and retiring the last 13 batters he faced, was only three outs away from his first major league shutout when Padre Manager Greg Riddoch told him to call it a night. Although Benes had thrown only 87 pitches, it was 60 degrees with a 21-m.p.h. wind and Riddoch decided it was no time for heroics.

“I’ll be honest with you,” Benes said, laughing, “I usually give up runs, so I’m not used to being in that situation in the first place. It was fine by me. I’ll pick it up another time.”

Actually, Benes gladly would have sacrificed this victory in exchange for Monday’s game. You see, Benes wasn’t with the team Monday, flying to Chicago on the off day. He wasn’t out for a steak dinner or relaxing on Rush Street.

No sir, Andy Benes spent his off-day in Omaha, Neb., watching the College World Series. There was a freshman pitcher at Creighton that he wanted to see. In fact, he hadn’t seen this kid pitch in an organized game since Little League.

But when Benes found out that his younger brother, Alan Benes, was pitching Monday in the College World Series, and that the Omaha was only a short hop from Chicago, he didn’t hesitate making travel arrangements to Omaha.

Little did he realize he’d have plenty of company. Padre starter Dennis Rasmussen, who attended Creighton and makes his off-season home in Omaha, wanted to go along. And Padre first baseman Phil Stephenson, whose brother coaches Wichita State, already had made plans to be in town.

The three of them sat at Rosenblatt Stadium Monday watching Creighton’s first appearance in the World Series, with Alan Benes on the mound, and Gene Stephenson in the opposing dugout. They were planning to sit together until Rasmussen and Benes realized that Stephenson’s tickets were in the Wichita State section.

“I told him I had plenty of tickets,” Stephenson said, “but, of course, if you were going to sit in the Wichita State section, you’d have to root for Wichita State, too.”

Instead, Benes and Rasmussen sat on the Creighton side with Benes’ parents, cheering on the underdog Blue Jays, and agonizing over each pitch.

“It was just excruciating to watch,” Benes said. “I mean, I’ve never gone through anything like that. I wanted to put a dip (of tobacco) into my mouth so bad to relax me, but I couldn’t because the TV cameras were on me.

“Really, I don’t know how my mother does it, it drives you crazy watching.”

Alan Benes, like his older brother, had a stellar pitching performance, allowing only four hits and two unearned runs in 8 1/3 innings, but Wichita State won the game, 3-2 in 12 innings.

“I was so drained after watching Alan, I had no trouble sleeping,” Benes said. “I was more tired watching that than I was pitching. That’s why I knew pitching tonight was going to be easier than watching.”

The Padres also made it easy on Benes for a change, scoring seven runs in the second inning, equaling their season high, and allowing Benes to pitch worry-free. It was a nice change of offensive support, as the Padres have been shut out in three of his starts and limited to one run in two others.

“I haven’t caught a whole lot of breaks this year,” Benes said, “so this came at a great time. It was a crazy game.

“It was like they kicked off and we ran it back for a touchdown.”

The Padres, who had two players thrown out at home and left the bases loaded in the first inning without scoring, took the suspense out of the game in the next inning. With two out, and a runner on second, the Padres proceeded to score seven runs off rookie Bob Scanlan. Center fielder Thomas Howard keyed the rally with a run-scoring double, and after Tony Gwynn’s run-scoring single, shortstop Shawon Dunston booted a ball that kept the inning alive, and enabled the Padres to score five unearned runs.

Left fielder Darrin Jackson managed to collect two hits and make an out in the wild second inning and had more RBIs in one at bat--two--than he had had in the previous month. Howard, subbing for the injured Bip Roberts, was the offensive star of the game with a career-high three hits while stealing two bases.

Gwynn caused a little concern when he suffered a twisted left knee running out of the batter’s box in the first inning. But Gwynn remained in the game long enough to collect two more hits to raise his batting average to a league-high .361 before leaving in the seventh.

“I’ll be fine,” Gwynn said. “I’ll be back in there (today). I’m not going to sit, believe me, I’ll be playing.”

Meanwhile, the Padres again made more roster moves, placing pitcher Ed Whitson on the disabled list and purchasing the contract of catcher Brian Dorsett from triple-A Las Vegas.

Dorsett, who was hitting .285 with a team-leading 11 homers and 29 RBIs, gives the Padres three catchers, and allows Riddoch the flexibility of using left-handed catcher Tom Lampkin as a pinch-hitter.

“It’s great to be up here,” Dorsett, 30, said, “but for a while I didn’t think I was going to make it. They didn’t tell me I was being called up until 8:30 this morning. I had 10 minutes to catch the flight by the time I got to the airport. The door to the plane was already closed.

“Now that I’m here, though, I want to stay here.”

Dorsett was perhaps one of the Padres’ toughest cuts of the season. He was hitting .294 with two homers and five RBIs in 12 games this spring, yet the Padres decided to go with an extra infielder, and kept Garry Templeton on the roster.

“That first week was tough, really tough,” Dorsett said. “It took me three days just to get my mind cleared. I kept wondering, ‘What’s going to happen, what’s going to happen?’ Then I kind of resigned myself to the fact that I’m in the minors again.

“Now that I’m here, I don’t want to go back.”