PHILADELPHIA — In a game that should have been called on account of cruelness, the Padres lost Sunday to the resurgent Philadelphia Phillies, 16-5.
A crowd of 35,144 came to Veterans Stadium here on beach towel day, but many of the Padres left with towels hung over their heads.
They hadn't given up that many runs in nine years, and they had every reason to give up after Sunday's third inning.
They trailed, 10-2.
Andy Hawkins was the starter, and he said he was feeling good when he warmed up in the bullpen. But he lost it somewhere between there and the mound as he yielded eight runs in a little more than one inning.
He walked three.
"I was downright wild," he said.
He was replaced with one out in the second by Tim Stoddard, who almost always is a wild thing. Stoddard walked six in little more than two innings; he even walked in a run. Lance McCullers came in later and gave up a three-run homer, and Craig Lefferts chipped in, walking a couple of batters and giving up three runs himself.
There were 12 Padre walks. Dick Williams hated walks, and if he were here he'd be fuming. Since he isn't, he's probably laughing.
Manager Steve Boros, last seen with his head down, was pouting.
"Yeah, it's amazing," Boros said. "We get two good pitching performances and we can't score (Friday and Saturday), and then we get blown out in the second inning of our next game. It's amazing. . . . But it's only June 1st. June 1st! They (the Padres) were in first place on July 1st of last year and look what happened."
Padre players weren't too depressed. Tony Gwynn was more interested in finding out how a referee could miss calling Larry Bird for walking. Half the team sat around after the game watching the Celtics and Rockets.
"Hey, he walked a mile on that one!" Gwynn bellowed.
Uh, Tony. The baseball game?
"I think anyone who's seen us play has to be worried," Gwynn said. "But today's game you can throw out the window. When you get beat 16-5, you can't sit down and analyze."
Instead, you sit down and watch some hoops.
Winning pitcher Steve Carlton (4-6) began the game with some "oops" pitches. In the first inning, Gwynn doubled to deep right-center. Kevin McReynolds followed with a home run to deep left, his 10th, and the Padres had ended their 19-inning scoreless streak.
Carmelo Martinez and Bruce Bochy followed with singles, but Carlton got out of the inning, yielding just those two runs.
Then it was Hawkins' turn. He gave up a double to Ron Roenicke and hit Juan Samuel in the back. He walked Mike Schmidt and the bases were full. Von Hayes scored Roenicke with a sacrifice fly and Glenn Wilson homered to deep left.
Wilson, who's been slumping, has raised his batting average to a season-high .185.
"We got down 2-0 and everyone was yelling to keep it going," Wilson said. "All of a sudden, I hit the home run and we could relax. Uh, they helped us a little, too."
A year ago at this time, Hawkins' record was 11-0. After Sunday's loss, he is 3-4.
"I'm not throwing my cut fastball this year," Hawkins said. "In spring training, I could never get a feel with it so I put it on the shelf. That's the difference. Last year, I'd throw it anywhere in the count, any situation, and could get a strikeout or an out.
"I was so wild, but you could count the times I've been wild the last two years on one hand. It was just one of those days."
Said Boros: "He (Hawkins) always pitches high in the strike zone, more than any young pitcher I've seen. But the pitches are usually in (inside). Today, they were right over."
San Diego trimmed the Philadelphia lead to 10-5 in the sixth inning on John Kruk's two-run single and Gwynn's RBI single. But Lance McCullers, a former Phillie farmhand, gave the home team a hand in the sixth, giving up a three-run homer to catcher Darren Daulton. Later, in the ninth, Lefferts gave up a single to Daulton, two walks and a two-run single to Roenicke, a former Padre. The last run came in on Luis Aguayo's sacrifice fly.
The Phillies have won six straight games, and club President Bill Giles gets an assist for a recent pep talk. The team had just been swept by the Padres on the West Coast and were striking out every other at-bat.
But Giles told them before this homestand to relax, that there wouldn't be any personnel changes. They've taken off.
"You have to give a lot of credit, after what's happened, to that speech," Wilson said.
Meanwhile, the Padres--as they head for New York and Dwight Gooden--are pretty much speechless.
Padre Notes
