Fans Hot on Trail of Santiago : Padres: Slump fuels the fire surrounding the Padres’ catcher. Teammates are trying to deflect criticism.

Benito Santiago is doing his best to downplay it. Manager Greg Riddoch says he’s not concerned about it. Teammate Greg Harris is doing his best to deflect the criticism away from Santiago.

But the fact remains Santiago has one hit, a single, in 22 at bats. And no matter how many games the Padres are winning, they are not about to let Santiago--with his $3.3 million salary--forget that he is hitting .045.

Santiago went zero for four in the Padres’ 5-4 victory over the Dodgers Sunday and left four runners on base in his first two at-bats. After each failed at-bat, the boos grew louder and the average dropped.

Initially, Santiago tried to ignore it all.

“I don’t want to talk about that,” he said.

Eventually he gave in.

“As long as we’re winning, I don’t care,” he said. “I know I’m going to hit some balls. If we win some games, I’ll be happy. It’s one of those days. It’s going to be over. I have bad luck right now. I like to win, so I feel good.

“Mentally, I feel fine. I just have to battle with myself and be tough. And be a man. I’ve got to be everything. I’ve got to figure out a way to react to those stupid fans again. I don’t let them get to me. If they boo, they do. Who’s going to win the battle, them or me?”

Right now, the fans are winning and Harris, who threw eight shutout innings until two runners scored in the ninth, said he doesn’t like it one bit.

“The biggest thing I was disappointed in today is that I don’t think the fans are treating Benny fairly,” Harris said. “Sure, he may have left some guys on base, but he caught eight shutout innings. People have to understand he played a great game today.

“He’s getting to know the pitchers better, I can’t say enough about how he played today and all I heard was boos.”

Merv Rettenmund, Padres batting coach, also came to Santiago’s defense. He said early-season hitting slumps are sometimes overblown.

“At the beginning of the season, it’s magnified because you don’t have any numbers up there,” Rettenmund. “If you’re hitting .270 and go one for 20, it’s not that big a deal. And he’s had a lot of scoring opportunities.”

But Rettenmund said the fans are unfair.

“(Hitting) is only part of the game,” he said. “I don’t know why they do (boo) here. It makes no sense to me. If he wasn’t trying. . . . That is part of the problem. He’s trying way too hard. The effort’s there, the results aren’t right now.”

Rettenmund isn’t sure why the results aren’t there. But he has seen Santiago pressing at the plate lately.

“The first three or four games, he was hitting some balls very, very well,” Rettenmund said. “Today, he actually swung the bat pretty decently. It’s just that the pitches he was swinging at were not quite in the area he wanted them. The last time up, he jumped at the ball.”

But even though his All-Star catcher is struggling, Riddoch doesn’t seem to be concerned. He appeared defensive when asked about Santiago’s hitting woes.

“He’s trying hard,” Riddoch said. “I see him trying to hit the ball hard. Sometimes he jumps out , but everybody does that. I don’t worry about where he’s going. He’s going to be fine.”

Darrin Jackson, who can sympathize with Santiago after getting off to an .083 start, said there are better days ahead for both of them.

“I just told Benito, ‘We’re going to San Francisco,’ ” Jackson said. “We both hit well there. If he turns around and goes five for five, he can be hitting .250. And then when we come home the fans will be cheering for him.

“You know one thing about baseball. Nobody is going to keep hitting below .100 forever.”