Photos by George F. Lee, Star-Bulletin
Ron Gant of the Cardinals dives head-first into home
with an inside-the-park home run as John Flaherty
of the Padres awaits the throw.
Padres rise and shine
Rickey Henderson puts on a show
By Mike Fitzgerald
as San Diego tags St. Louis, 8-2, before
40,000 at Aloha Stadium
Star-BulletinA sneaky smile slipped across Rickey Henderson's face as he sat in the corner of the locker room. "Yeah, it's the run thing," said the top base stealer in baseball history. "Playing against my old manager, he knows I'm going to run and try to create something."
Well, the 38-year-old not only stole two bases yesterday, but he also was 3-for-4 at the plate with a walk, as he led the San Diego Padres to an 8-2 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals in front of 40,050 sun-splashed fans at Aloha Stadium.
"It was a pretty big day for me," said Henderson, who now has stolen 1,189 bases in his 19-year career. "Today, I was a lot more patient and put the bat on the ball."
Most of the Padres' bats came alive as they bounced back from Saturday's frustrating 1-0 and 2-1 doubleheader losses to the Cardinals in the first regular-season major-league games ever played in Hawaii.
"Hopefully, this will get us on a roll," said San Diego manager Bruce Bochy. "We're a good hitting ballclub, but every team goes through it. And it's contagious when you start hitting, too, to get untracked."
Wally Joyner also was 3-for-4 for the Padres -- and Quilvio Veras, Tony Gwynn and Ken Caminiti knocked in two runs apiece to support the fine seven-inning, seven-hit pitching performance of Andy Ashby.
"We didn't play very well last night (Saturday)," said Joyner. "I thought we were a little rusty from the two days off and the travel. But we played very well today and Andy threw the ball very well."
Ashby also had six strikeouts and just two walks as he picked up his first victory of the season against one defeat.
Photos by George F. Lee, Star-Bulletin
Henderson connects to drive in Archi Cianfrocco.
Brady Raggio (1-1) was the loser for the Cardinals."We weren't sharp defensively," said St. Louis manager Tony La Russa. "It was pretty ugly the first four innings. We just had a bad day."
Still, La Russa looked at the bright side.
"Our number one priority is to win the series, which we did," he said. "But I'm disappointed we didn't play well today. And Ashby had live stuff. He looked really good."
"We came out today and scored some runs," Ashby said. "This was a big win for us. Everything came together and we played well."
On Saturday, the Padres only had nine hits in two games. Yesterday, they had 12 hits -- and pretty much put the game away with four runs in the fourth inning, which gave San Diego a 7-2 lead.
The only down side for San Diego's comeback was a hamstring injury to Caminiti in the fourth inning. Last season's National League MVP is listed as day-to-day.
Henderson also put a scare into the Padres when he crashed into the left-field wall trying to grab a long drive by Ron Gant in the top of the fourth inning. Gant wound up with a rare inside-the-park home run.
"I thought I had a pretty good jump on it, but when you get out toward the wall it seems like you're going downhill -- and then I stumbled a little bit," Henderson said. "Hey, I've had football hits like that, so I'm OK."
It was Gant's second home run of the season.
"I don't really like it more than one over the fence, but it's exciting because it's more rare," he said. "I was trying to get something going for our team."
The Padres improved to 9-7 on the season, while St. Louis fell to 6-11.
"It's important that you put tough games behind you and we did that and came out and played well today," said Bochy.
"Winning two out of three is definitely something for us to build off of," said Cardinals first baseman John Mabry, who was 2-for-4 yesterday. "We've been hit by the injury bug early, but maybe this will be a kick-start for us."
Mililani native
By Dave Reardon
makes it to The Showand Mike Fitzgerald
Star-Bulletin
Even if you aren't a great player, there still might be a place for you in The Show. Just ask Ken Kawachi, 23, who grew up in Mililani and played high school ball for the Trojans. After graduating from the University of San Diego with a degree in business a couple years ago, Kawachi responded to an ad for ushers at Jack Murphy Stadium. During his interview, he asked about internships with the Padres. Before he knew it, Kawachi was the team's stadium operations assistant.
"My job is to make sure the stadium is ready for our fans before every game," Kawachi said. "It's lots of different things -- supervising the events staff, promotions, news conferences."
Kawachi also played a role in helping to plan the "Padres in Paradise" series, sitting in on some meetings to offer the Hawaii perspective.
WHERE TO NOW? Both teams returned to the mainland last night.
The Cardinals play a two-game series at Los Angeles tomorrow and Wednesday. They return to St. Louis on Thursday, completing a 10,200-mile road trip that began last week in Florida.
The Padres cover "only" 9,988 miles on their current road trip that started in Philadelphia and will end in Houston with games tomorrow and Wednesday.
INJURY LIST: First baseman Dmitri Young was a late scratch from the St. Louis lineup yesterday.
"He woke up with a sore hip (yesterday) morning," Cardinal manager Tony La Russa said. "He's not quite sure how he did it."
La Russa moved John Mabry into the lineup to replace Young. Mabry responded with two hits.
Young joins a large group of Cardinal wounded, which includes eight on the disabled list: pitchers Brian Barber (elbow), Andy Benes (side), Rick Honeycutt (shoulder), Danny Jackson (side) and Lance Painter (hamstring), outfielder Ray Lankford (shoulder), catcher Tom Pagnozzi (calf) and infielder Roberto Mejia (groin).
Padres third baseman Ken Caminiti pulled his right hamstring while doubling in the fourth inning yesterday and left the game. Outfielder Steve Finley, who had a pinch-hit single in Saturday's first game, is day-to-day with a sore throwing arm.
WORKED ON HIS SWING: Although as gracious a guest as they come, it's obvious Padre outfielder Tony Gwynn loves his home, San Diego, more than anywhere else -- even Hawaii.
"I'm not that much of an outdoorsy person. I hate the beach, I hate the water," Gwynn said yesterday. "Hawaii doesn't really offer me as much as some of the other guys. But it was nice coming back. I golfed on Thursday and had a good time playing Turtle Bay (The Links at Kuilima, with San Diego neighbor Scott Simpson) and that was very nice.
STRONG ARMS: Dennis Eckersley, who saved the first game of Saturday's doubleheader for the Cardinals, was just one of three former Cy Young Award winners at Aloha Stadium over the weekend. (Eckersley won the award in 1992 while pitching for Oakland).
Fernando Valenzuela (Dodgers, 1981) was between starts for the Padres and Randy Jones (Padres, 1976) did his pregame radio show from here.
Also, Rick Sutcliffe (Cubs, 1984) does TV color analysis and coaches the Padres' single-A affiliate in Idaho Falls, Idaho.
Series Reaction
