Padres’ Benes Keeps Cubs Quiet in 2-0 Victory

SAN DIEGO —  The at-bats are like great big sighs of relief.

The baseball is pitched, the baseball arrives at home plate and, when Gary Sheffield is batting, the baseball usually makes a quick U-turn, heading toward the outfield only a little more quickly than Sheffield left Milwaukee.

While Andy Benes threw six no-hit innings at the Chicago Cubs Friday night, Sheffield’s second double of the evening scored the first run of a 2-0 Padre victory in front of 17,379 in San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

Benes (5-3) was masterful, allowing only three hits, striking out eight and walking only one while working his first complete game since Sept. 3, also against the Cubs. It was also Benes’ first shutout since Aug. 29, against St. Louis.

Left fielder Oscar Azocar made a crucial, pinpoint throw home in the seventh just ahead of Mark Grace to keep the game scoreless.

Sheffield, who as recently as March felt like a prisoner in Brewer pinstripes, extended his hitting streak to 15 consecutive games, which ties an NL high this season. He is batting .338 and leads the NL with 34 RBIs. Maybe more impressive, he is hitting .442 with runners in scoring position.

“There are a lot of players who will step up and answer the call, but there are a certain few who want to be in the middle of the fire,” Padre Manager Greg Riddoch said. “I think he’s that kind of player.”

Sheffield won’t argue.

“I thrive on big situations,” he said. “I feel like I’m the most relaxed guy in the park.

“It’s just something that goes way back. I just feel it in my heart that I can do this. I never amaze myself. I feel like the sky is the limit for me.”

His first double came in the third inning Friday and, just when it seemed as if Sheffield’s allotment of clutch hits should be running out, he stepped up in the eighth with Tony Fernandez on second and the score tied at 0-0.

Greg Maddux’s first pitch was a strike, and then Sheffield--who had never faced Maddux--turned on a fastball and sent it into left field. Although Benito Santiago singled home another run two batters later, it was all the Padres needed.

“Against a great pitcher like Greg Maddux, you have doubts, but you always tell yourself you can do it,” Sheffield said. “He threw great. He fooled me a couple of times. I’m not a guess hitter.”

Funny . . .

“I thought I made a good pitch there, but he outguessed me,” Maddux said. “You’ve got to give him credit.

“It’s one thing to lost if you hang a slider, but it’s another when you don’t know the batter. So I’ve got to do my homework better. I learned from this.”

Padre fans also learned something: That Benes can actually win at home. After two losses, this was Benes’ first home victory.

“He’s had good stuff before, but he had great stuff tonight,” Riddoch said.

Benes said he jammed the middle finger of his right hand while taking batting practice Thursday and thought for awhile that he might have to miss his start. But he played catch a couple hours before game time Friday and said he could go.

The way he is pitching lately, the Padres would hate to see him miss a start.

After three consecutive fair-to-poor outings in late April and early May, Benes has won three in a row and once again is pitching like he did at the end of last year, when he won 11 of his last 12 decisions.

In his past three games, Benes is 3-0 with a 1.52 ERA.

“The biggest difference in me this year as opposed to last year is that I’m getting my stuff inside,” Benes said.

Not until Grace led off the seventh with a single did the Cubs get a hit. Benes retired 18 of the first 20 Cubs he faced, and 10 in a row during one stretch from the second to the fourth.

Only Grace (walk in the first) and Andre Dawson reached base in the first six innings, and Dawson reached base on a questionable Sheffield error in the fifth.

Dawson hit a hard grounder into the hole between third and shortstop. Sheffield somehow stabbed the ball with a long dive. Sheffield got up but made a high throw to first, which pulled Fred McGriff off the base. Dawson was safe, and it was ruled an error on Sheffield.

It was a night of borderline calls, though. When the Cubs finally did start to hit, with three singles in the seventh, Grace was thrown out at the plate by Azocar in what also was a questionable call.

The throw bounced once before catcher Benito Santiago caught it, whirled and lunged toward Grace. Television replays seemed to show Grace sliding across the plate slightly before Santiago’s tag, but home plate umpire Terry Tata called Grace out.

But the play was so close that Benes had the opposite perspective. He said he thought Grace was safe until he saw television replays.

A lack of runs, meanwhile, is nothing new for Maddux. The man could easily be 8-0 instead of his current 4-4. In those four losses--and one no-decision--Maddux’s ERA is 1.94, but the Cubs have scored one run.

Give the Padres, who have won 10 of their past 14, pitching like that and they would probably have the NL West clinched by now.

Still, Maddux didn’t complain.

“I thought Andy was a lot sharper than I was,” he said. “I got off the hook in the first four innings. I got away with a lot of mistakes early in the game.

“Obviously, he out-pitched me. He threw everything where he wanted all night.”