Even Without Sleep, New Arrivals Help to Wake Up the Padres

MONTREAL —  Larry Bowa was smiling so wide it appeared to hurt. But after 82 games with the Padres, perhaps it did.

“Let me tell you,” the manager said after his team defeated the Montreal Expos, 3-2, Sunday, “these new guys come in here with two hours’ sleep and play the way they did . . . “

Outside in the clubhouse, Chris Brown’s eyes opened.

“Two hours’ sleep?” he asked. “I don’t know anything about two hours’ sleep. I didn’t get any sleep.”

About the same time, Mark Davis’ eyes closed.

“Sleep?” he asked. “The only sleeping I have done lately will be on the plane to Chicago.”

Sunday was a day for bright faces and unscarred psyches, but for the four new Padres, it could be described very simply.

If they didn’t know how much they would be needed, they know now.

Less than 12 hours after the Saturday night announcement of a seven-player deal between the Padres and San Francisco Giants, three of the four new Padres had left Chicago, where the Giants were playing the Cubs, and flown to Montreal. After a 2-hour, 20-minute game Sunday afternoon, they returned to the same Chicago hotel Sunday night, as the Padres will begin a three-game series against the Cubs at Wrigley Field today.

“They bring us all the way up here for one game?” joked Brown as he tried on his new uniform.

Brown, a third baseman, started and batted third and, although he went 0 for 4, turned a nice double play.

“I just hope they appreciate my brand of baseball here,” Brown said. “I give it my all and hope for the best.”

Pitcher Davis threw two-thirds of a scoreless seventh inning of a 2-2 game. This included retiring Tim Raines on a two-out, bases-loaded grounder to the mound. Raines hit the grounder on an 0-2 pitch.

“Split-finger fastball,” said Davis, shaking his left hand with two outstretched fingers. “No matter where you are playing, you’ve got to make that pitch.”

The other two new Padres didn’t play Sunday, but they were being kept awake in different ways. Reliever Keith Comstock, who came to Montreal with Brown and Davis, was sitting in the bullpen wondering what he was doing on this team.

“When I was a kid, I was always a Giants fan, so I always knew about the terrible trades they made . . . “ he said, only half-kidding. “I mean, I’m a 31-year-old rookie. It’s hard to believe somebody would want me.”

The fourth acquired player, starter Mark Grant, was told to stay in Chicago.

“Get your rest,” the Padres told him. “You’re starting Monday against the Cubs.”

Said Bowa: “We got some guys who can help us right now. We’re going to throw all of them right in.”

And just what kind of splash will they make? Though the players did not even bring so much as a suitcase with them, all came carrying noticeable baggage.

Brown carries the tag of good fielder, good hitter but injury-prone. In his two previous full major league seasons, he has averaged 123 games. This year, he has played in 38 games. He has six homers and 17 RBIs.

Brown had a detached tendon in his left shoulder last September and ultimately had to have surgery.

Then on May 4 this season, he was hit in the face with a pitch from St. Louis’ Danny Cox and suffered a broken jaw.

“San Francisco is yesterday’s news,” said Brown, who missed 38 games because of this latest injury. “Anytime somebody brings the jaw up, I try to talk around the issue. I can’t think about it. I was off two months and I’m still not back, but I’m getting there.

“And anyway, the time I spent out with the jaw, it gave my shoulder more time to heal.”

Said Bowa: “We know it’s going to take time, but we’re going to give him that time. That’s not an easy thing to come back from. I don’t care what his batting average is, he’s a bona fide No. 3 hitter, and he’s going to hit.”

Davis’ problems also involved disbelief, but this time from one of baseball’s most positive managers. Just last Friday, when asked about Davis, the Giants’ Roger Craig shrugged and said, “I don’t know what I’m going to do with him. I’ve tried everything with this guy.”

So now he has tried trading him, which makes sense considering that Davis was 26-49 in 4 1/2 years with the Giants. He was considered a key in the 1982 Giant deal that sent Joe Morgan to Philadelphia.

“I think he was in the doghouse over there, and just wants a chance to pitch,” said Bowa, who proved Sunday he would leave the left-hander in games against right-handed hitters. “He and Comstock (also a left-hander) will get every chance to get batters out from both sides of the plate. I have to give them that chance, I’m running short on right-handers.”

Said Davis: “The opportunity to pitch, that’s what I get here. Bringing me in today in a tie game, that showed me something. That’s what I want.”

Comstock brings with him disbelief from everyone. He has played on seven teams in five years. He has been cut from teams in five countries: the United States, Canada, Mexico, Japan and Venezuela. He had finally made everything work this season with his hometown team (2-0, 3.05 ERA), and now this.

“I think Davis and Grant knew they were going, but I had no idea,” Comstock said. “I guess I’m starting all over again, again. At my age, you just never know.”

Although Grant, perhaps the key to the deal, didn’t make it to Montreal Sunday, he may eventually be noticed more than the others. Grant was the player the Giants privately didn’t want to trade. And not just because he was a first-round draft choice (No. 10 selection overall) in June 1981.