Galarraga Wakes Giants From Catnap

In the shadow of the Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks, the San Francisco Giants may be starting to stir.

With Andres Galarraga stepping into the season-long Ellis Burks void, a slumbering offense has begun to produce, and the defending Western Division champions are 4-0 since his acquisition, including 3-0 in Arizona.

“When you’re leading the league in runners left on base you’ve got to do something,” Manager Dusty Baker said of Galarraga’s acquisition.

Knocking the rust off his irregular role with the Texas Rangers, Galarraga batted fifth and drove in eight runs in those first four games, and the Giants hit 15 homers and scored 40 runs.

In addition, Jeff Kent, batting fourth, had six runs batted in with Galarraga behind him and Barry Bonds, batting third, had hit three home runs in two games. Has Galarraga’s presence helped him?

“Ain’t nobody going to protect Barry but Barry,” Bonds said. “There ain’t no other Barry. He’ll help Jeff.”

Since everything comes at a price, the Giants made room for Galarraga by waiving the valuable Felipe Crespo. They subsequently put J.T. Snow on the disabled list and then traded Crespo to Philadelphia for relief pitcher Wayne Gomes. Crespo tied for the league lead in pinch-hits last year and was batting .316 as a pinch-hitter this year, but Baker believes Eric Davis (.204) has life left and lobbied to keep him.

With seniors Galarraga, 40, Davis, 39, Mark Gardner, 39, Shawon Dunston, 38, Bonds, 37, and Benito Santiago, 36, the Giants need to win now, prompting their entry in the Pedro Astacio derby. San Francisco could be the favorite, in fact, if willing to trade pitching prospect Kurt Ainsworth.

The Diamondbacks, also burdened with age, have a similar imperative, which is why they were willing to include pitcher Nick Bierbrodt, their first selection in the 1996 draft, in the trade for Tampa Bay pitcher Albie Lopez.

“We liked a lot of things we saw in Nick,” said Diamondback General Manager Joe Garagiola Jr., “but without using words like urgency and panic, obviously this is a team for right now.”

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Dan O’Dowd has made 27 trades in 24 months as the Colorado Rockies’ general manager, with Astacio to go before Tuesday’s non-waiver deadline.

O’Dowd wants to build a younger, more athletic, less expensive team and concedes he veered from that course last winter. His players have become confused by the course and the message. First baseman Todd Helton, for example, said he was left somewhere between “sad and very angry” by the three-way trade that sent talented shortstop Neifi Perez to the Kansas City Royals.

“I played with Neifi for six years,” Helton said, “and to me he’s what a baseball player is. He . . . plays every day and he plays with energy. I thought that’s what we wanted here.”

Depends, of course, on the price.

The Rockies, believing in the minimum-salaried Juan Uribe, couldn’t get Perez to commit to a multiyear contract, didn’t want to face his arbitration demands each of the next two years, and got three young players in that three-way deal.

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A pulled hamstring muscle has limited Ken Griffey Jr.’s availability and speed all season, but he was quick to cover his tracks this weekend. After telling Cincinnati columnist Tim Sullivan on Friday that he is willing to give up the six years remaining on his $116.5-million contract and retire if the Cincinnati Reds show no interest in winning by continuing to overhaul the roster, Griffey said Saturday that his comments were taken out of context and he was just kidding.

Well, sort of.

The fact is that Griffey has repeatedly said he would restructure his contract if it would help the Reds keep and/or sign players, and he didn’t claim to have been taken out of context when he recently pleaded publicly for roster preservation.

Since then the Reds have traded outfielders Alex Ochoa and Michael Tucker, and there is speculation that closer Danny Graves, second baseman Pokey Reese and outfielder Dmitri Young could be traded before Tuesday’s deadline. Griffey, of course, isn’t going to retire, but he wasn’t kidding when he told Sullivan, “I don’t want to be in a situation where it looks like we’re the [Cincinnati] Bengals. I want to win.”