Escondido Times-Advocate - June 16, 1980
Coleman plans to shake up Pads
PHILADELPHIA (AP) – After losing their last seven games in a row and going 1-8 on the roadtrip, even going home isn’t that uplifting for the San Diego Padres. “Heck, we were 2-7 on our last home stand,” said Padre manager Jerry Coleman, who was ejected in the sixth inning of yesterday’s 8-5 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies. “We haven’t played well in a month.”
Yesterday, San Diego starter Rick Wise, 3-4, gave up four runs in the first 1⅔ innings, including an RBI-single to pitcher Bob Walk, his first in the major leagues.
"We had a pitcher get a hit off a pitcher, then Wise hurt his knee,” Coleman said, explaining that the veteran right-hander had caught his spike pitching to Walk and strained an old injury.
Dennis Kinney relieved and held the Phillies for two innings before two San Diego errors in the fifth gave Philadelphia three more runs.
Tonight the Padres open their longest homestand of the year (13 games) with games against the New York Mets tonight and tomorrow, the Philadelphia Phillies on Wednesday and Thursday and the Montreal Expos over the weekend. The San Francisco Giants and Atlanta Braves are in for three-game series next week.
Left-hander John Curtis (3-4) pitches for the Padres tonight against right-hander Craig Swan (5-4).
“Somethings got to be done about our poor play,” Coleman said. “We’re missing signs, making errors, not hitting the ball and now we’ve got two pitchers hurt (Wise and Randy Jones).
“I think I’ll shake things up a bit for this homestand. I’ll probably sit Dave Winfield down for a while. He’s really struggling (five-for-30 on the roadtrip). We need him to win games, but right now he just isn’t swinging the bat well. I saw Casey Stengel sit Joe Dimaggio down for a week once when Joe was going bad. Casey’s strategy worked because Joe came back and tore the cover off the ball the rest of the season.
“I hope the same thing will happen with Dave."
Jerry Turner will play Winfield’s rightfield position against right-handed pitching while Kurt Bevacqua will be stationed in the outfield against left-handers.
Coleman also indicated that he will go with Barry Evans at second base for at least a while. Evans, in his second big league season, would replace the veteran Dave Cash who is hitting just .213.
The new Padre third baseman, at least against right-handers will be rookie Tim Flannery, who his hitting .405 after 37 at bats this season.
On the other side of the field, the Phillies were very happy with their three-game sweep of the Padres. “Who said we couldn’t win on Sunday?” Philadelphia manager Dallas Green joked.
Green wasn’t crowing, however, despite Walk’s second win, Lerrin LaGrow’s first save and Bake McBride’s and Greg Luzinski’s continued hitting streaks. The Phillies departed on a seven-game, West Coast road trip still searching for starting pitchers.
“I’d like to come off the road trip with a decent record,” said Green, adding that he intends to start reliever Dickie Noles on Tuesday in Los Angeles against the Dodgers because of Dick Ruthven’s shoulder injury.
“It means we’re hurting enough that I’m going against what I want to do and taking Dickie (Noles) out of there (the bullpen),” Green said.
For the Padres, about the only thing good about yesterday’s error-filled game was that it ended their road trip. The Padres lost all three weekend games to the Phillies, finishing the trip with one victory, eight losses and one suspended game. San Diego has dropped seven straight, 10 of 11 and 16 of their last 19. The club is now 6-22 against first division teams.
“Their defensive lapses helped us,” Green said. “But our aggressiveness did, too. We force those type of defensive errors against teams capable of making them.”
Luzinski extended his hitting streak to nine games with an RBI-single in the first to drive in McBride, whose single stretched his streak to eight games after missing five with a cold.
