Power To The Padres

What we have here is a whole new ball game. In the off-season, the NL West opened its arms to refugees from Tokyo to Montreal. The Reds got a new manager, Lou Piniella, who was fleeing persecution in the Bronx. The Padres got a centerfielder, Joe Carter, from exotic Cleveland. The Astros got pitcher Bill-san Gullickson, late of the Yomiuri Giants. The Dodgers got two starting outfielders, Juan Samuel from the Mets and Hubie Brooks from the Expos. A person could get a headache trying to figure out what's going to happen in this division.

This much is certain: The Giants will have a hard time defending their National League title. Who'll be on top of the pile on Oct. 5? Well, after weeks of research, we have concluded that the winner will be—eeny, meeny, miney, mo—the Padres.

1. SAN DIEGO PADRES

The Padres have one of the most impressive lineups in baseball: Bip Roberts 3b, Roberto Alomar 2b, Tony Gwynn rf, Jack Clark 1b, Joe Carter cf, Benito Santiago c, Fred Lynn If, Garry Templeton ss. This is a decided improvement even on last year's team, which tied Oakland for the best second-half record (47-27).

Carter, who had 35 homers and 105 RBIs last year, is the best player in the game never to have been named to an All-Star team. On the first day of spring training, he hit a 450-foot shot that damaged a car owned by backup first baseman Rob Nelson, whose license plate reads HIT 1 DEP. Carter's presence is also cheering up his good friend Gwynn, who is feeling a little put-upon, seeing how he's only the seventh-highest paid Padre and the club has refused to renegotiate. Owner Joan Kroc is selling the club to a group headed by television producer Tom Werner, however, and the new owners might reopen talks with Gwynn, who has a chance to become the first player since Rogers Hornsby to lead the league in hitting four years in a row.

San Diego's biggest concern is replacing Cy Young Award winner Mark Davis, who signed with Kansas City as a free agent. The Padres acquired another lefthanded closer. Craig Lefferts, and while he may not be Cy Young material, he and righthanded closer Greg Harris should pick up most of the slack. The rotation is fairly solid, with Bruce Hurst (15-11 with a 1.29 ERA in seven no-decisions), Ed Whit-son (16-11, 2.66), rookie Andy Benes (66 strikeouts in 56⅔ innings) and Eric Show (8-6 before missing the second half with a back ailment). When Show, the iconoclastic, nonnewspaper-reading righthander, showed up this spring, he asked the beat writers, "Whatever happened to Pete Rose, anyway?"

2. CINCINNATI REDS

Rose is gone from baseball, which means, of course, that he is no longer managing the Reds. His place has been taken by Lou Piniella, who finally escaped the grasp of Yankee owner George Steinbrenner. Joining the Reds has been something of a homecoming for Piniella, who grew up in Tampa, where Cincinnati once trained. "I used to retrieve baseballs that went over the fence, then sell them to get into the park," says Piniella. "I remember guys like Johnny Temple, Vada Pinson, Frank Robinson, Ted Kluszewski."

The 1990 Reds don't have a Klu, although they do have Todd Benzinger (.245, 76 RBIs) at first. The rest of the division doesn't have a clue as to how strong these Rose-less Reds will be. Injuries to shortstop Barry Larkin, pitcher Danny Jackson and third baseman Chris Sabo are what undid the Reds last year, but all three appear to be healthy again. The Reds would also like to get a few extra games out of the most gifted player in baseball, centerfielder Eric Davis (34 homers, 101 RBIs, 21 steals), who has never played more than 135 in a season.

Cincinnati's pitching is threadbare beyond Tom Browning (15-12), Jose Rijo and Jackson. But in the late innings, Piniella can turn the heat on, with Norm Charlton (98 strikeouts in 95⅓ innings), Tim Birtsas (57 in 69⅔), Randy Myers (88 in 84⅓) and Rob Dibble (141 in 99). Neither Dibble nor Myers is of this world: This spring they posed together for a picture in The Tampa Tribune-Times holding a water moccasin caught in the pond next to Cincinnati's training facility in Plant City. If the Reds aren't snakebit this year, they should be contenders.