Padre Platoon Comes Together for 6-3 Victory

SAN DIEGO — They share one position, one role, one heartache. All of which made Monday night against Atlanta special.

For once, the Padres were big enough for both John Kruk and Carmelo Martinez.

As the Padres’ Left Fielder of the Day, Martinez hit his sixth homer and added a single and scored a run. As the Padres’ Left-out Fielder, Kruk came up with a pinch-hit, two-run double to highlight a five-run sixth inning.

Give Martinez the big ovation. Give Kruk the game-winning RBI. And give the Padres a 6-3 victory over the Braves in front of 13,160 at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

And oh, yes, give both of them a regular job. Here. There. Anywhere.

“We are both the type that have to play every day,” Kruk said before the game. Kruk was on the bench because Brave starter Tom Glavine is a lefty, and Kruk only plays against righties. “If we can’t, we aren’t happy, and if we would be happy, we wouldn’t be ballplayers.”

Add Martinez, who plays against all lefties: “I know both of us want to play, bad. If we play every day, we can both make a team good.”

Now for Manager Jack McKeon: “The idea is winning. How you win, who cares? How can you justify losing with guys sitting on the bench who deserve an opportunity? This is a 24-man team, and everyone deserves a chance.”

Perhaps not everybody. After Monday’s seventh straight loss, the National League-worst Braves fell to 35-70 and moved to within two games of being as awful as the Baltimore Orioles, who you’ll remember didn’t win a game until about Memorial Day. And Monday the Braves did nothing to tarnish that distinction as they committed two errors and allowed the often-weak-hitting Padres 10 hits.

Then there was that scene in the second inning, when some of them even walked off the field after Glavine ran the count to 2-and-2 on Padre pitcher Ed Whitson. Seems they thought that latest pitch was strike three.

Whatever, it was into this rarefied air that Martinez started the game’s scoring with his homer, a one-out shot off Glavine in the fourth.

“It was a fastball low and inside, and I was going after it,” Martinez said. “I’ve decided, if I’m going to hit .220, it’s going to be a hard .220.”

Whitson then allowed two Braves runs in the fifth, but that only set up the Padres’ sixth, in which they batted around for the win.

Martinez started the rally with a single. Then Randy Ready singled. Then Roberto Alomar doubled in a couple of runs. After Benito Santiago was walked, the right-handed Chris Brown was announced as a pinch hitter for Whitson, inducing the Braves to remove Glavine and bring in right-hander Charlie Puleo.

Advantage, McKeon. Brown is nursing a sore right hand and likely could not have batted anyway. He was essentially a decoy. As soon as Puleo took the mound, the left-handed hitting Kruk was inserted for Brown.

After working the count to 2-and-2, Kruk hit a shot into the left-center field gap that rolled enough to get him a double and two RBIs.

Left field, heck. As a pinch-hitter, Kruk is now 2-for-3 with a homer and three RBIs.

“I was just trying to make contact,” Kruk said. “I knew if I made contact, something good would happen.”

It’s about the only thing good that’s happened to Kruk lately. The biggest difference between he and Martinez is, only one of them has prospered under McKeon’s charge, and it’s the guy who has started just 20 of McKeon’s 60 games here.

“I feel good, for once I’m tired,” Martinez said Monday night with a smile. “I’ve played three games in a row, the first time in a long time.”

Martinez hit just .188 with two homers and seven RBIs under former Manager Larry Bowa. But in similar playing time under McKeon, he is hitting .252 with four homers and 25 RBIs.

“I have learned what I got to deal with,” he said. “This is my situation. I must make the best of it.”

Even when talk of a trade comes up, which it often has concerning both Martinez and Kruk since the platoon situation began, Martinez is patient.

“I’ve been on the trading block for so long, I know they have to get just the right player before I’m traded now,” he said.

Kruk is equally as calm about things.

“I’m not complaining,” he said. “He (McKeon) is the manager. He’s been around longer than I’ve been living. This winter, I’m going to go to the instructional league and learn how to switch hit.”

Lately he has needed to work on hitting, period. Of the 46 games managed by Bowa, Kruk batted 112 times, with a .286 average and four homers and 18 RBIs. In the 60 games under McKeon, Kruk has batted just 21 more times, with a .218 average and just three homers and 14 RBIs.

Last season, Kruk had at least three homers and 14 RBIs in three separate months, leading to a team-leading 20 homes and 91 RBIs.

Kruk, who was fourth in the league with a .313 average against most all kinds of pitching last season, is hitting just .249 and he’s confused.

“I’m not the happiest person in the world,” said Kruk, who is an avowed non-complainer and has yet to visit McKeon’s office to discuss the reduced playing time. “Last year, I thought I showed I could play. I guess I’ll just have to prove it to them all over again.”

During the winter, Bowa called Kruk an untouchable at first base. Now, he not only isn’t playing first base, he’s not even playing full time. He says the less he sees left-handed pitching, the less chances he has of hitting left-handed pitching, or any pitching.

McKeon said he is being as fair as possible with Kruk and Martinez.

“I think Kruk just hasn’t found the right combination yet, and when he gets it together, he’ll have a chance to be a regular,” McKeon said.

Asked about the merit of Kruk’s performance last season as a regular, McKeon said, “Last year, you would have to say, yeah, he’s got to be in the lineup. But this is a different type of club than it was then.”

McKeon thinks that this season, which will likely be Kruk’s first full pro season in which he hasn’t hit .300 (his seventh pro season overall), should serve Kruk as a time of learning. “In everyone’s career, they must learn to handle adversity. For Kruk, this is one of those times.”

As for other guys who played Monday, Ed Whitson, who in his last start had a 10-appearance unbeaten streak snapped in a 4-1 loss to Houston, started what he hopes is another streak by allowing two runs in six innings for his 10th win. This equaled his win total for all of last year and pulled him to within four wins of his career best 14-8 record, compiled with the 1984 Padres.