Schiraldi’s Late Work Is a Relief

Padre reliever Calvin Schiraldi never bothered to look at the scoreboard clock. He just knew it was late. Very late.

Most of the crowd had already departed Dodger Stadium. His teammates, who had not scored in the previous seven innings, were exhausted. Even he was tired.

Then it dawned on him. Hey, it was no longer Friday. It was Saturday, right? And he knew what that meant.

This was his 28th birthday.

“And I’ve never lost a game on my birthday,” Schiraldi said. “Going back to Little League, I’m 9-0 on my birthday. And I sure didn’t want to spoil my record now.”

Schiraldi, coming into the game when it still was Friday, pitched two shutout innings, and was the winning pitcher in the Padres’ 3-1, 13-inning victory over the Dodgers, thanks to Joe Carter’s two-run homer in the 13th.

But much more important to the Padres than the victory, or Carter’s heroics, was Schiraldi’s performance.

This is a guy the Padres desperately need if they’re going to make a run at the Cincinnati Reds. It’s nice for Padre Manager Jack McKeon to have Craig Lefferts and Greg Harris in the bullpen, but it’ll be a long season if he has to rely on just two relievers.

And for the first two months of this season, Schiraldi wasn’t exactly a guy McKeon could rely on in the clutch. Schiraldi owned a 5.70 earned-run average, yielding 27 hits and 18 walks in just 23 2/3 innings. In the month of May alone, Schiraldi allowed 12 hits and 13 runs (10 earned) in 10 innings for a 9.00 ERA in seven outings.

But it was his dreadful performance in New York, when he allowed five hits and four earned runs in two innings, when Pat Dobson, the Padre pitching coach, detected a flaw in Schiraldi’s delivery.

“He was just sloppy,” Dobson said. “His hand was moving everywhere, and each time he threw the ball, it was coming from a different angle.”

Presto, since Dobson’s briefing, Schiraldi has pitched three times, yielding just one hit in 6 1/3 innings, and all of a sudden, Schiraldi feels like a reliever again.

“This is the best I’ve felt all season,” he said. “I still get away from what I should do from time to time, but now I know what I was doing wrong. I think everything will be all right.

“Yeah, I’ve got to say, it was a pretty good birthday.”

Even if he still was on the mound until 12:12 in the morning, 4 hours and 36 minutes after the game started.