PEORIA, ARIZ. • Ryan Ludwick feels he has a debt to repay.

Recently appearing on a San Diego radio station, the Padres outfielder said, "I owe the fans of San Diego a Ryan Ludwick season."

The Padres, when they acquired Ludwick from the Cardinals in a trade July 31 for righthander Jake Westbrook, were 1½ games ahead of San Francisco in the National League Western Division race. They finished two games behind the Giants, who went on to win the world championship. Ludwick suggests he was at least partially responsible.

After he joined the Padres, Ludwick, who had been hitting .281 for the Cardinals with 11 homers despite missing a month with a right calf strain, batted only .211 with six homers and 26 runs batted in over 59 games, striking out 57 times. Over the Padres' last 13 games down the stretch, he was four for 42 (.095) with one homer and one RBI.

A .322 hitter at Busch Stadium last year, Ludwick batted just .200 at spacious Petco Park. He pointed out that he had more homers at home than on the road for the Padres. Unfortunately, those totals were just four and two, respectively.

There is suspicion, advanced by several National League baseball observers including San Diego manager Buddy Black, that Ludwick, who had 59 homers and 210 RBIs for the Cardinals the previous two seasons, was still bothered by his calf injury. Others have said the ballpark was too big for Ludwick.

Black said Friday that Ludwick's sense of responsibility may have been too great.

"Coming over, he put a lot of pressure on himself to do well," Black said.

"He knew the situation we were in as a club, in a pennant race. Coming to a new team, guys always try to do probably a little more than what's expected of them, which hopefully would just be their norm. There was a lot of internal pressure."

Then, citing the calf injury Ludwick suffered in late June, Black said, "He was playable, he was able to play hard but I don't think the calf was quite 100 percent."

Ludwick declines to use the calf problem as an excuse.

"I wouldn't say I was hurt," he said. "It was nagging. It wasn't at the point where I couldn't play (Ludwick missed just one of 60 games with the Padres).

"It was there but it wasn't something that hampered me, really. I obviously was good enough to play. I played two months and never did injure it again.

"I don't know what happened. It was just one of those things."

But, agreeing with his manager, Ludwick did admit to piling too much on himself.

"Coming to a new place, wanting to do well, kind of struggling and building pressure ... being in a pennant race ... a lot of things," he said.

"Unexplainable. A tough two months. But I don't want it getting back to anybody that it was my calf. I don't want it going back to St. Louis that 'Oh, Luddy said his calf wasn't right.' It was right. I don't want to use that."

One longtime scout said he thought pitchers had done a good job of working Ludwick up in the strike zone and even out of it, rather than going to his strength as a rare, righthanded-batting, low-ball hitter who likes to golf the ball. Ludwick doesn't argue the point.

"I think what happens sometimes when things aren't going right, the game speeds up," Ludwick said. He explained that in his eagerness to do well, he opened his strike zone and then expanded out of it.

"I was getting real anxious to swing at pitches that aren't normally strikes," he said. "But it was weird. I went back to St. Louis and I was locked in."

Ludwick, in a four-game series in mid-September at Busch Stadium, had a pair of two-hit games — his last ones of the season — and homered and drove in three runs in the Padres' only win in the series.

Ludwick, who next will appear at Busch on March 31 when this season opens, said that in general, late last year, "I couldn't find the strike zone. Swinging outside the zone, I was getting in bad counts early. When you're getting in 1-2 and 0-2 counts, it's going to be tough to hit. It was a rough, rough stretch."

At 32, Ludwick is in a watershed period. He can be a free agent after the season and, mindful of the significance of this year, has added weight in the right places and worked out some this winter in St. Louis with Cardinals star Matt Holliday.

He said he wouldn't mind staying in San Diego. "But I haven't been in a place where I haven't liked playing," he said "I feel like if you have a big-league uniform on, what's not to like? That comes from a guy who went through a lot of adversity.

"But I'd be lying to you to tell you there wasn't a little extra incentive in the workouts this offseason, knowing that it was a free-agent year coming up.

"It's a make-or-break year," he said. "I can be a guy who can be an everyday guy or it could turn out be a deal where I'm more of a player coming off the bench a year from now. I'd rather be the guy playing every day."

With first baseman Adrian Gonzalez, the heart of San Diego's lineup for several years now playing in Boston, Ludwick might take on even more importance in what would seem to be a modest Padres attack this year.

"No one's going to pick up that type of offense," Ludwick said. "(Gonzalez) has notoriously been one of the best lefthanded hitters in the game the last four or five years and you don't replace that with just one guy. That's like saying, 'How are you going to replace Albert Pujols?'

"It's kind of a tricky deal. There's pressure in this game every day and sometimes you deal with it better than others. Last year, it came to a point where I didn't deal with it well. It was probably the worst stretch I ever had. It was pretty ugly.

"Ouch! Every time I'd go home at night, I'd say, 'Really?'

"The main thing this year for me is swinging at pitches in the zone. If I can do that, I'll be all right."

Black said he didn't think Ludwick would be overcome by any heightened expectations.

"I think he learned his lesson last year, about trying to exceed expectations," Black said.

"He's in a great frame of mind. Countless times I told him last year, 'Hey, relax. Just play your game. You're a good player.'

"He said, 'Buddy, I want to do so well. I want to help this club.' That's what we love about him. Everybody's who had him loves him. He's a stand-up guy. He takes responsibility. He understands his role on the team and that's great. But just be yourself and play your game. The talent and the production will take care of itself.

"I'll take Ryan Ludwick any day."

The Cardinals are paying $8 million to Lance Berkman, who hasn't played outfield on a regular basis for six years, to be their right fielder. Ludwick, certainly a more accomplished defender, will make $6.8 million to be the Padres' right fielder.

But Ludwick thinks Berkman will be a good fit in St. Louis.

"Berk can hit, man," Ludwick said. "I played against Berk a lot in college and he's a great guy. He's going to be great in the clubhouse and he's a good athlete. I think he'll do all right."

Ludwick has a corner locker at the Padres' training site. The corner locker traditionally is reserved for a star player and Gonzalez most recently had it.

"I hope there's plenty of hits in there," Ludwick said. "I've been searching for them."