PENNY-PINCHING PADRES' PROBLEMS PILE ON.

Byline: Brian Dohn Staff Writer

A week ago, a group of women were ready to sing - well, more like lip sync - the national anthem in San Diego when someone put in the wrong tape. It sounded like a barber-shop quartet, according to a few people in attendance.

Indeed, everything seems to be going wrong for the San Diego Padres, a franchise that constantly sings the blues about being a small-market club and one that seems much further than five seasons removed from a trip to the World Series.

Bad contracts and devastating injuries to key players have left the Padres in one of the worst places possible - mentioned in the same breath as the Detroit Tigers.

Hey, if not for the Dodgers and San Diego's lovingness to beat their big bullies to the north, people would be asking whether the Tigers are as bad as the Padres instead of the other way around. The Padres are 4-3 against the Dodgers, 9-32 against the rest of baseball.

San Diego's utopian environment is being uprooted, and it turned ugly last weekend when pitching coach Greg Booker was fired before a game against Atlanta. And it came despite manager Bruce Bochy being against it.

Then, pulling a page from former Florida Marlins pitching coach Brad Arnsberg, Booker sounded off against the organization, and his former pitchers.

``You can prepare a donkey to run in the Preakness, but he probably won't run very well,'' Booker told reporters.

Padres general manager Kevin Towers, who fired Booker despite protests from Bochy, responded by telling reporters in San Diego, ``That comment certainly bothers me. If I was one of the pitchers who has been through here, I'd find it pretty hard to take knowing my pitching coach thought of us as donkeys.''

Padres pitching is awful, and their league-leading 225 walks allowed just scratches the surface. Their ERA is a National League-worst 5.78, and they've allowed a league-high 68 homers. Jake Peavy has been consistent, but Adam Eaton is on the disabled list and Oliver Perez was sent to the minors.

Things are bad in San Diego, but how much better can they get?

Closer Trevor Hoffman might not pitch this season because of two shoulder surgeries, Phil Nevin is out for the season after undergoing left-shoulder surgery, and catcher Wiki Gonzalez is owed $4.1 million through next season but is in the minors. Not exactly the best way for a cash-strapped organization to spend its money.

The franchise record for losses in a season is 110, established in 1969. That could be threatened. The Padres, who have lost nine in a row heading into Saturday's game at Arizona, were on pace to lose 118 games.

Booker also took out some of his frustration about the organization's penny-pinching practices during a pregame interview with the Padres' radio network.

``We're one of very few teams that do not have an advance scout this year,'' Booker said during the radio interview, which came just days before his firing. ``Myself and Dave Magadan (the hitting coach), ... the worst part is, when we're playing the Marlins, we have to do advance work during that series against the Marlins for the Braves.

``We're always trying to stay ahead so we can be ready for the Braves when they come in the next day. I feel like I've had radiation treatment in my head from watching so much TV and so much video. You can only soak up so much. I soak up as much as I can, then I have to relay it to these guys, and it's a fine line how much you want to throw at them.''

It's not the way the organization wants to head into their new digs next season, the downtown stadium named Petco Park. But at least that will provide endless jokes.