This Injury Leaves Giant Hole to Fill

Say hey? Well, is there any other way to replace Barry Bonds, who will be lost to the San Francisco Giants for 2 1/2 months after surgery for bone spurs in his elbow and a torn triceps tendon?

“Are we going into the market? No way, unless Willie Mays wants to get into shape,” General Manager Brian Sabean said. “There’s no way you can go into the market to rectify this.”

The loss, of course, could significantly affect the race in the National League West, where Giant Manager Dusty Baker annually works wonders with mirrors and magic.

Baker called Bonds’ injury “a devastating blow, probably one of the largest challenges I’ve had. We can sit around and cry, or we can tighten our belts.

“We’ve got a lot of guys who yearn to play. Now they’re going to get the chance.”

One of those is rookie Armando Rios, who hit 26 homers and drove in 103 runs in the Pacific Coast League last year and was hitting .333 in a part-time role through Thursday. The Giants were 11-13 when Jeff Kent missed a month because of a knee injury last year, but they came back to tie the Chicago Cubs for a wild-card berth before losing a one-game playoff with the Cubs.

Said Kent, of Bonds’ loss: “It’s not like Barry hits a three-run homer every day. Nor will I. Nor anybody else. Nobody will try to be Barry Bonds just because he’s gone. We have the ability to play well without any one particular person.”

*

It didn’t matter that Don Sutton is a Hall of Famer with his mural on the outfield fence at Dodger Stadium and the all-time L.A. leader in pitching wins. A security man prevented Sutton, an Atlanta Brave broadcaster, from approaching the batting cage before Tuesday’s game at Dodger Stadium and chatting with Charlie Hough, Dodger pitching coach and a longtime friend. Sutton would have had to cross a blue tarp that the Dodgers put down to keep media and non-uniformed personnel away from the cage, a violation by the Dodgers of major league policy.

Sutton sounded off about it on the ensuing telecast, saying, “I don’t know what the point was. You used to run into that kind of thing in New York at Yankee Stadium, not Dodger Stadium. What a joke.”

Sutton had warmer thoughts about the former composition of the crushed brick infield, noting, without naming himself, that “there was a certain right-handed pitcher who worked here years ago who would bounce a pitch on purpose once in a while, hoping to get it back without the umpire checking it. If he did get one with a little scuff from that stuff on it, he could make it do wonderful things.”

*

Cancellation of the Tuesday and Wednesday games at Coors Field because of the tragedy at Columbine High School in suburban Denver will force the Colorado Rockies and Montreal Expos to play two day-night doubleheaders in three days in August, but no one was objecting.

Montreal Manager Felipe Alou recalled being in Los Angeles with the Expos in 1992 and having a three-game series postponed because of riots after the Rodney King jury decision. He also had a more personal reason for endorsing the Colorado cancellations.

“In 1976, the 26th of March, I was coaching with the Expos and we were playing an exhibition game in Orlando,” he said. “In the fifth inning I received a phone call that my son, Moises’ older brother, had died in our swimming pool at home [in the Dominican Republic]. He was 15, so right now I don’t worry about doubleheaders. I worry about society, about children. When your kid dies, you don’t feel anything anymore.”