PADRES : Schiraldi Stumbles in Quest to Be No.5

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Calvin Schiraldi marched in the Padre clubhouse Tuesday afternoon, threw his glove toward the ground, angrily grabbed a stool and glared across the room.

He had just blown a five-run, ninth-inning lead, allowing the San Francisco Giants to escape with a 7-6 victory. Even though this is only spring training, Schiraldi was painfully aware of the consequences of his outing.

Reporters cautiously approached him. “I’ve got nothing to say,” he said. Reporters quickly retreated.

In the back of the clubhouse, Joe McIlvaine, Padre general manager, and Manager Greg Riddoch were speaking in hushed voices. The creases in their faces revealed their concern. It is 20 days until opening day, and the Padres are not even close to finding a fifth starter for their rotation.

Dennis Rasmussen and Atlee Hammaker are injured, and could open the season on the disabled list. Mike Dunne is on the verge of being sent to the minors. Derek Lilliquist is being shopped to anyone who wants him. And Eric Nolte has started only one game in the big leagues since 1987.

“We keep waiting for someone to step forward and take the job,” McIlvaine said. “But here it is, March 19, and I’m still waiting. It’s only natural to be concerned.

“I was hoping we could find that No. 5 pitcher without making a trade, but after what we’ve seen, we’re keeping our eyes wide open to see who’s out there.”

That spot in the rotation was the Padres’ albatross last season, when their No. 5 starters combined for a 7-18 record.

The Padres held high hopes for Schiraldi.

“He’s an absolute mystery to us,” McIlvaine said. “It was never the physical ability. It’s always been the other. It was the same thing that was questioned in college when he was the player of the year.

“He’s tried psychological help, everything. He worked so hard during the winter, making sure the same thing didn’t happen again. Now, I just hope this one game doesn’t set him back too much.

“This was a golden opportunity for him, but a major league pitcher just doesn’t blow a five-run lead in the ninth inning. Major league pitchers just don’t do that.”

The Padres already abandoned any plans of bringing Schiraldi back to the team as a reliever. Allowing every inherited baserunner to score the final five months of the season--16 in all--has a funny way of irritating managers.

“If he doesn’t make our team as a fifth starter,” Riddoch said, “he’s not going to make it.”

And considering Tuesday’s performance, well, let’s just say Schiraldi shouldn’t worry about calling a San Diego real estate agent nest month.

In many respects, Schiraldi’s collapse should be no surprise to McIlvaine. He was the one who drafted Schiraldi in 1983 for the New York Mets. He also was the one to dump him three years later, in an eight-player trade that brought the Mets pitcher Bobby Ojeda.

It was during that season when Schiraldi helped the Boston Red Sox win the American League East. If not for him, McIlvaine said, the Red Sox wouldn’t have made it to the World Series. Of course, also if not for Schiraldi, McIlvaine said, the Red Sox wouldn’t have blown the World Series to the Mets.

“I still think he’s a little shell-shocked,” McIlvaine said. “He’s scarred. But like anything in life when you get scarred, you’ve got to get over it. You keep thinking that one day it’ll happen. One day, he’ll be back. But who knows just when that day will be.

“It’s very perplexing, and unfortunately, no one knows the answer.”

Outfielder Tony Gwynn isn’t sure how this is going to work. He has been in the big leagues for nearly nine years, and he really doesn’t know if he’s capable of such a personality change.

But when Padre Manager Greg Riddoch pulled him aside last week, and asked him to be a vocal leader of the team--and not just lead by example as in the past--Gwynn agreed to try.

“I still don’t feel comfortable doing it,” Gwynn said. “I’ll be doing stuff I never thought about doing before. But I’m ready to do it.

“I guess I just never did it before because I felt like a lot of times you’re just getting in other people’s business. You feel like you’re trying to tell somebody how to do their job. That wasn’t me.”

Now, apparently, it will be. Gwynn already has begun talking with the young outfielders, providing advice whenever needed. He has a clubhouse prank ready for the guys when they return to Yuma. And he has made sure to let everyone know that although what happened a year ago might have left scars, the grudges no longer linger.

“This time,” Gwynn said, “I told them to let me know to my face if anything’s bothering them, instead of letting the whole world know first.”

Said Riddoch: “I’m excited about what I’ve seen. He’s always been the type of guy who can lead, but he’s always done it on a one-to-one basis. Now, he’s becoming a vocal leader.

“It’s just what we need.”

Leader or not, Gwynn took a lot of good-natured abuse by his teammates Tuesday after Riddoch scratched him from the lineup because Gwynn had been filming a commercial for major league baseball.

Jim Vatcher, the guy who replaced Gwynn in the lineup, went four for four with two doubles.

“I don’t think he’ll be missing any more games,” Riddoch said, laughing.

McIlvaine didn’t know whether to laugh, scream or cry. Never in his 22 years of baseball has he ever encountered something like this.

“It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen,” McIlvaine said. “To tell you the truth, I still can’t get over it.”

The situation was this:

McIlvaine was relaxing in the stands Tuesday, sitting in the first row with a horde of scouts, when Jim Ferguson, Padre media relations director, nudged him on the shoulder. They needed to talk. Quickly.

Ferguson, after reading the Giants’ press notes, noticed that the Padres were scheduled to play the Giants on Thursday in a split-squad game. But there was one problem.

The Padres had no idea they were playing the Giants. They were scheduled to play the Seattle Mariners in Tempe on Thursday, and leave after the game for Yuma. At least, that’s the way their schedule read.

Well, somewhere in the changing of the guard during the winter, someone forgot to tell McIlvaine that they also had a split-squad game against the Giants on Thursday. The Giants never thought for a moment the Padres weren’t aware of the game.

McIlvaine, unnerved, went to talk immediately with Giant General Manager Al Rosen. Could they get out of the game? Not a chance. The Giants have sold 6,000 tickets.

“It’s unbelievable,” McIlvaine said. “If we didn’t play the Giants today, I’m sure we never would have known. Everybody would have waited for us to show up, and then wonder where the heck we are.

“Thank goodness we found out. We’re going to have to make some adjustments and bring up another minor-league pitcher from Yuma, but we’ll be OK.

“Man, how do these things happen, anyway?”

Padre reliever Larry Andersen, who managed to find his way to the ballpark Tuesday without a single crisis, had another kind of adventure.

Andersen, who has only 34 career at-bats and a .118 batting average, came to the plate with the bases loaded in the seventh inning. He swung wildly and missed the first two pitches. He swung feebly at the next pitch and hit a grounder to second baseman Tony Perezchica, who bobbled the ball. He tried to get Andersen at first, but it was too late, allowing a run to score.

The next thing Andersen knew, he was running to third on a double hit by Paul Faries to left field.

“I was halfway there when I realized I had a can of Skoal in my back pocket, and that I went on the DL the last time I slid,” Andersen said, “so I decided to try something different.”

Andersen slid head first into third, beating the throw and drawing cheers from his teammates.

“Really, it was a day I’ll always remember,” Andersen said. “It was so nice pulling into the parking lot the same time as the team bus. . . . And that was the first RBI in my life, including spring training. It was the game-winning RBI, too, right?

Well, almost. The Giants rallied in the ninth to win the game.

“You’ve got to be kidding?” Andersen said.

Yes sir, it was that kind of day.

Commissioner Fay Vincent attended Tuesday’s game between the Padres and Giants in Scottsdale, vowing that he wants to keep the Cactus League alive.

“I care a lot about the Cactus League,” Vincent said, “and I’m going to work very hard to keep it alive. But I need help. I’d like to strengthen some of the teams’ (leases) that we have here, because some aren’t very happy. . . .

“I really don’t want anyone to leave the Cactus League, and I have the power to do something, but I’m very reluctant to do so. I’m not going to force somebody to do something that isn’t economically feasible.”

Padre Notes

The Padres placed pitcher Candy Sierra on irrevocable waivers Tuesday, the last day clubs can release players without being liable for severance pay. Sierra, 24, who pitched last season for class-A Riverside and triple-A Las Vegas, allowed one hit in three innings this spring. . . . The Giants also asked waivers on veteran outfielder Rick Leach, who spent 30 days last fall in a drug rehabilitation center. . . . Padre pitcher Andy Benes, who pitched five shutout innings in his finest outing of the spring, revealed after the game that he and teammate Shawn Abner have purchased sibling French dogs, with Abner receiving the male dog and Benes the female. “It’s the daughter I always wanted,” Benes said. “I told Abner when my daughter gets older, don’t think for a minute I’m going to let your dog around mine.” . . . Garry Templeton went two for three with a triple and two RBIs. . . . Just how are Joe Carter and Roberto Alomar doing in Toronto, you ask? Carter is hitting .379 with two homers and eight RBIs. Alomar, who has missed the past four games with a bruised right hand, is hitting .278 with two homers and five RBIs.