Wednesday, May 01, 2002
Padres 2, Cubs 1
The Associated Press
SAN DIEGO — Rookie Sean Burroughs got his first hit with runners in scoring position, and Trevor Hoffman reached another milestone. In between, Ray Lankford made an impressive catch in left field to make it all stand up as the San Diego Padres beat the Chicago Cubs 2-1 Tuesday night.
Hoffman got his eighth save in as many chances this season, giving him 320 with the Padres to tie Dennis Eckersley's record for saves with one team.
Burroughs hit a bad-hop RBI triple in the eighth inning that got past first baseman Fred McGriff and gave right fielder Sammy Sosa trouble, allowing Phil Nevin to score the winning run.
Burroughs had been 0-for-15 with runners in scoring position.
“I was pressing a little bit up there when I get the ducks on the pond, ready to get them in,” Burroughs said. “I was just trying to get a single.”
After fouling off several pitches from Joe Borowski (1-1) with one out in the eighth, Burroughs hit a 2-2 pitch that skipped past McGriff and rolled toward the Cubs' bullpen in the right-field corner.
Sosa appeared ready to play a carom, but the ball slowed down and he had to go get it while Cubs relievers scrambled out of the way. By then, Nevin had scored and Burroughs was chugging toward third. Nevin reached on a leadoff single and advanced on Lankford's sacrifice bunt.
“The baseball gods were with us,” Burroughs said. “That ball might have hit a little chunk of dirt there, and that allowed him to get in. Whatever it takes to win the game, that's what we're going to do.”
Burroughs, 21, has hit well this season, just not with runners on second or third.
“He does a lot of things for you,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “He's just a kid and he's going to get better and better. He's a good hitter. He's usually going to put the ball in play and he did. He got it down the line enough and it ended up being the game-winner.”
Said McGriff: “The ball just hopped up on me. I thought it was a bad hop.”
San Diego made several nice defensive plays, none bigger than Lankford's nice back-handed catch of Todd Hundley's slicing liner with one out and a runner on first.
“I was playing him to pull. It was a long run; it took several steps to get there, but it sealed the win for us,” Lankford said.
Jeremy Fikac (3-0) retired Moises Alou with runners on first and second to end the eighth.
Padres right-hander Brian Lawrence was working on a four-hit shutout before Corey Patterson and Alex Gonzalez hit consecutive doubles with one out in the eighth to tie it at 1.
Until then, Lawrence had allowed just one Cubs runner — Sosa — to reach third base, in the first.
Patterson doubled into the left-field corner with one out in the eighth, and Gonzalez doubled into the right-field corner, just beyond the reach of the diving Trenidad Hubbard, who replaced Ryan Klesko to start the inning.
Although he didn't get the decision, Lawrence lowered his ERA from 2.29 to 2.11. Lawrence, who relies heavily on his sinker, had 13 groundball outs in 7 1-3 innings. He allowed one run and six hits, struck out two and walked two.
The Padres had only five hits, but they benefited from former teammate Matt Clement's wildness in the second inning to take a 1-0 lead on Ramon Vazquez's sacrifice fly. Clement (1-3) walked three and allowed a single in the inning.
Burroughs drew a one-out walk and went to third on Tom Lampkin's single. Burroughs tagged up on Vazquez's fly to shallow left and slid in just ahead of Alou's throw to catcher Joe Girardi.
Clement walked Lawrence and D'Angelo Jimenez to load the bases, but avoided further damage when he got Mark Kotsay on a grounder to end the inning.
Clement allowed one run on three hits in six innings, walked six and struck out four.
“I may have come out a little too pumped up,” Clement said. “It was weird going into the other dugout.”
Notes: Eckersley saved 320 games for Oakland from 1987-95. ... Clement was traded from the Padres to the Marlins in spring training 2001. He faced the Padres once last year, beating them in Miami. He was traded from the Marlins to the Cubs in spring training this year. ... Steve Garvey's retired No. 6 has suddenly reappeared in Qualcomm Stadium. The Padres now have their retired numbers emblazoned on the outfield fence, instead of on banners hanging from the light towers, and Garvey's number is now among them. For years, the Padres commemorated Garvey's retired number only on the spot on the outfield wall where he hit his memorable winning homer in Game 4 of the 1984 playoffs against the Cubs. That spot eventually was obscured by an overhang when the stadium was expanded in 1997.
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Padres 2, Cubs 1 
