McGriff Exposes Padre Woes : Baseball: He says the team cannot afford to make mistakes, such as those resulted in the Padres losing, 7-4, to Montreal.

MONTREAL —  First baseman Fred McGriff isn’t trying to dampen the Padres’ enthusiasm. He doesn’t want anyone thinking the Padres’ playoff hopes are dead.

He is just being realistic, McGriff said after the Padres lost to the Montreal Expos, 7-4, Thursday night at Olympic Stadium.

“You’ve got to be honest about this,” he said. “The Reds have got us by 5 1/2 games. So honestly, if they keep playing well, and their pitching stays the same, we have no chance to catch them.

“The thing that hurts is that we never should have been in this situation in the first place. We gave away too many games in the first half. Now, we’re forced to play six games better than the Reds.

“And we’re not going to do that unless we get good pitching.

“Really, I’m just being honest about it.”

The Padres (47-43) know they should be feeling fortunate the Reds also lost to St. Louis, but realistically, they know they have to soon solve their problems before dreaming of the playoffs.

“This was like our opening day of the second half,” Padre catcher Benito Santiago said, “and this is a bad start. A real bad start. We’ve got to start winning this first week. We’ve got to put the pressure on.”

Instead, the Padres found themselves out of the game by the fifth inning, and wondering what happened to starter Bruce Hurst (8-6).

Hurst, brilliant in an eight-game stretch when he went 5-1 with a 2.01 ERA, has fallen upon hard times. He lasted only 4 1/3 innings, surrendering seven hits and six earned runs. It was his second shortest outing this season.

In his last two starts he has yielded 11 earned runs and 15 hits in 9 1/3 innings, a 10.61 ERA.

“I don’t know what’s wrong,” Hurst said. “I’m just a bad pitcher right now.”

Said Padre Manager Greg Riddoch: “I can’t explain it. But we’re going to need him if we’re going to make a run at (the title).”

Actually, the Padres’ biggest boost in the pennant race will occur Sunday night when they leave Montreal for Philadelphia. The Padres have lost seven of nine games this season to the Expos, and the Phillies are the only team the Padres have defeated in the past two weeks.

The Padres, who finished the All-Star break by sweeping the Phillies in four games, have lost six consecutive games to Montreal and the St. Louis Cardinals.

“Some teams just have your number,” McGriff said, “and the Expos have our number right now. I can’t say they kicked our butts, but they gave us a good, little whippin’.”

The Padres lost another game in the standings to the Atlanta Braves, who are in second place, only one game behind the Reds. The San Francisco Giants have sneaked into the picture, only two games behind the Padres.

“These next six weeks will make us or break us,” Gwynn said. “We have to keep winning to have a chance in September. If we fall on our face here, we’re out of it.”

The Expos (45-44), whose previous four victories were all one-run games, ended the suspense early in this night. They scored two runs in the third inning, a peculiar run in the fourth, and had a 7-0 lead by the end of the fifth inning.

It was quite enough to make a winner out of Ken Hill (10-4) whom the Padres have failed to beat in four starts this season. Hill allowed only two hits through the first five innings, and despite being knocked out of the game in the sixth after McGriff’s two-run homer and Jerald Clark’s run-scoring triple, the Expo bullpen handled things from there.

The Expos, who are only five games behind the division-leading Pittsburgh Pirates in the NL East, were a nuisance the entire evening. They played solid defense and made the Padres look foolish on the base paths.

The Padres scored the conventional style in the third inning on consecutive two-out singles by Spike Owen, Marquis Grissom and Larry Walker, but then had the Padres covering their faces in embarrassment during the fourth and fifth innings.

The Expos did it with sheer aggressiveness.

How else do you explain scoring a run in the fourth inning without a hit or an error?

The Expos managed this when Archi Cianfrocco drew a one-out walk from Hurst, and stole second. John Vanderwal then hit a grounder to McGriff behind first base. McGriff fielded the ball cleanly, and threw to Hurst for the second out.

There was only one problem. Cianfrocco kept running.

Hurst, who had been running full-speed, tried to suddenly stop and make a throw to the plate. Instead, Hurst thew wildly to Santiago but was not charged with an error. Cianfrocco slid in safely for a 3-0 lead.

The Expos didn’t bother with any shenanigans in the fifth inning, sending Hurst to the showers, and leaving a surprising crowd of 30,790 fans at Olympic Stadium loving every minute.

It started when Delino DeShields led off with a hot smash that third baseman Gary Sheffield knocked down, but was unable to make a play. Hurst retired Spike Owen for the first time in the game on a sharp bouncer to the mound, but nothing would go right for him the rest of the game.

DeShields stole second, which might have distracted Hurst, because Grissom followed by hitting a homer over the left-field wall on an 0-and-2 fastball. It was only the second time this season the Padres have surrendered a homer on an 0-2 pitch.

Walker followed with a single to right. And when Hurst walked Tim Wallach, Riddoch came to the mound for the ball.

It didn’t matter who was next on the mound. Santiago, in an attempt to pick off Wallach at first, threw the ball into right field. It allowed Walker to score, and Wallach to reach third. Reliever Jose Melendez gave up a sacrifice fly to Gary Carter, and the Padres were finished for the night.

“I never threw a ball to first base like that in my life,” Santiago said. “I don’t know what happened.”

The Padres can only hope that Thursday’s outing is not an omen. It’s only one game, Riddoch said over and over, and can’t be construed as more than a defeat.

“It’s not like the end of the world,” Riddoch said, “lose the first game, and you’re out of it. Every year we seem to have a nemesis, and this year, it’s Montreal.”

Considering the Padres’ 3.60 ERA is the third-worst in the National League, you might say it’s also their pitching staff.