Padres Find Race Escaping Them : Baseball: Braves chase Seminara in third inning, pick up a 4-2 victory.

ATLANTA — It has become a helpless, desolate feeling in the Padre clubhouse. They want so badly to loiter in the National League West race, but their pitching isn’t allowing them.

And now, for the first time, their offense isn’t rescuing them.

The Padres shrugged off their pitching woes for most of the first two months of the season. They knew it wasn’t pretty, but the offense always found some way to repair the damage with late-moment heroics.

The magic has stopped, and after losing 4-2 Saturday night to the Atlanta Braves at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, the Padres find themselves a season-high 3 1/2 games behind the division-leading Cincinnati Reds.

The Padres (32-29) are hesitant to say anything publicly, and they hate for anyone to know their confidence is waning, but they are petrified the pack is leaving them behind once again in the month of June.

It was this time a year ago when the Padres began their descent in the National League West, losing 16 of their last 26 games before the All-Star break. Take away their three-game sweep against the Houston Astros, and the Padres have lost seven of their last eight games.

Most critical, the Reds have used this time to win 14 of 18 games while the Braves have won 12 of 14.

Uh oh.

“We all know you can’t survive in this league without great pitching,” Padre first baseman Fred McGriff said. “We were able to get away with it for a while with our offense, but I think we all knew that wasn’t going to last.

“When Benito (Santiago) got hurt, that made a big difference right there. I haven’t seen good pitches for weeks. Pitchers don’t even try to throw strikes to me.

“The only time I get anything to hit, it seems, is when the game’s already out of hand.”

There simply is no real threat in the Padre lineup once McGriff takes his hacks, and certainly, the catching duo of Dan Walters and Dann Bilardello haven’t been striking fear into anyone’s heart. Walters and Bilardello have combined for a meager .163 batting average and five RBIs since Santiago broke his finger May 30.

This is the time when the Padres need their pitchers to take their turn in carrying the load, but with the exception of starter Bruce Hurst, they can’t find any takers.

The biggest void on the team has been the Padres’ failure to find a No. 5 starter, and they ended yet another week without a victory from their fifth starter.

Rookie Frank Seminara took his turn Saturday, but lasted only 2 1/3 innings before he was removed. The Padres’ fifth starter this season is 0-7 with a whopping 7.29 ERA. Dave Eiland failed to win a game in five starts, going 0-2 with a 7.00 ERA. Jose Melendez was 0-3 in his three starts with a 6.23 ERA. And now Seminara is 0-2 with a 6.23 ERA.

“We know there’s a problem there,” Padre Manager Greg Riddoch said, “but we don’t have any solutions. It’s not like we’re Atlanta or Cincinnati who can throw five (top-quality) starters out there week after week.

“We just don’t have that luxury.”

The Padres concede that they don’t even know whether Seminara is ready to pitch in the major leagues, but unless they bring Eiland back to the big leagues, they have little choice but to keep Seminara in the rotation.

“I really don’t know if he is ready,” Riddoch said, “but I don’t want to judge somebody on three starts. I know he has the makeup and ability, but we don’t know if he can refine it up here.”

Seminara, who was hammered in his last start five days ago against the Braves when he allowed five earned runs in 4 1/3 innings, failed to show any improvement. Although he was able to survive with little difficulty in the first two innings, the Braves never let him up for air in the third.

He opened the inning by walking pitcher John Smoltz. Deion Sanders followed with a sharp single to right-center, advancing Smoltz to third. Terry Pendleton drove the next pitch into center, scoring Smoltz for a 1-0 lead while Sanders went to third.

Ron Gant momentarily eased Seminara’s torment when he hit a grounder to third baseman Gary Sheffield, who threw out Sanders at home plate. It was Seminara’s last respite.

David Justice greeted him with a two-run double. Sid Bream followed with a run-scoring single. And Damon Berryhill hit another single.

That was it for Seminara, whose 2 1/3-inning stint was the shortest by a Padre starter since Eiland lasted 1 2/3 innings May 3 against the St. Louis Cardinals.

“I’m scuffling a little bit,” Seminara said, “but I’m still confident. I’m not going to give up. I think it’s a case where I’m giving those guys too much credit. I’m trying to be too fine instead of pitching my game.

“I don’t consider it humbling, it’s just that they’re the type of team that’s going to hit a guy who doesn’t have good stuff. And I haven’t had good stuff.”

Is he fearful that he may soon be receiving a ticket back to triple-A Las Vegas?

“I try not to worry about that stuff,” Seminara said. “I have sideline work Monday, and I have a start (Thursday in San Francisco). I can’t start to worry about those kind of things now.”

The Padre bullpen kept the sellout crowd of 38,149 from going home early by shutting down the Braves the remainder of the game. Unfortunately for the Padres, Smoltz allowed them only one opportunity to make amends.

Smoltz (7-5) got into his only jam of the night in the sixth inning, and it was a doozy. He hit leadoff hitter Tony Fernandez with a pitch, yielded a single to Tony Gwynn, and walked Sheffield on four pitches.

Just like that, the Padres had the bases loaded, no one out, and cleanup hitter McGriff at the plate.

Smoltz, making sure to prevent McGriff from tying the game with one swing of his bat, had McGriff trickle a ball off the end of his bat toward the right side of the pitcher’s mound. Smoltz ran toward the ball and tried to flip it to catcher Berryhill. Too late. Fernandez beat the throw and everyone was safe.

The Padres’ joy ride soon came to a screeching halt when Darrin Jackson grounded into a double play on a diving stop by third baseman Terry Pendleton. Oscar Azocar ended the inning by fouling to third, and the Padres managed only one runner the remainder of the game.

“Pendleton put on a one-man show out there,” Riddoch said. “What a difference he makes for that team. They got Pendleton out there instead of (Jim) Presley.”

Pendleton, whom the Padres considered to be washed up when they rejected him in the free-agent market a year ago, is hitting .486 with 12 RBIs against the Padres this season. Presley, whom the Padres did choose to sign to a free-agent contract, has not been in the big leagues since the Padres released him last June.

Of course, that’s another story.