Looking for a Pitch to Drive, Bonds Hopes to See a Strike

He stood in a corner of the press box, wearing a Panama hat, shaking his head.

The Baby Bull was angry.

“I tell you it is a disgrace,” Orlando Cepeda said. “If that team is fighting for a pennant, if the San Diego Padres are the Arizona Diamondbacks, then fine, don’t let him beat you, but to walk him with runners on first and second base is a disgrace to the game of baseball. I mean, you’re not going to say, ‘Here, hit it,’ but go after him. Challenge him. Nobody walked Mark McGwire four times in a game in ’98. The Padres should be fined.”

Well, the Padres didn’t walk Barry Bonds four times Sunday.

Nor will they be fined for doing what they felt was necessary to win a game that may have represented only pride to them but a lot more to the San Francisco Giants, for whom hall of famer Cepeda works.

Among the things the Padres did in dealing the Giants a potentially devastating defeat was to restrict Bonds to one swing in four plate appearances.

As Cepeda smoldered in the press box, many in the hooting crowd of 41,669 at Pacific Bell Park did the chicken dance in response to the way the Padres pitched Bonds, and an armada of small watercraft in McCovey Cove behind the right-field wall waited in vain for a souvenir possibly worth millions of dollars.

Ultimately, only history took a bath.

With Commissioner Bud Selig on hand and prepared to interrupt the game to honor Bonds if he hit the two home runs needed to eclipse McGwire’s 1998 record of 70, Bonds walked on four pitches in the first inning, grounded out on the first pitch to him in the third, walked on four pitches with runners at first and second and no outs in the fifth and, with former Dodger left-hander Jose Nunez having replaced starter Brian Tollberg, was hit on a protective right elbow pad by the first pitch to him in the seventh, when the Giants had a runner at first with one out.

Nunez left to a cascade of boos, and Jeremy Fikac and Trevor Hoffman then retired the final eight Giants in order, leaving Bonds in the on-deck circle when the game ended and the Giants, unable to take advantage of a Diamondback loss to the Dodgers, still two games behind in the National League West and now four behind the St. Louis Cardinals in the wild-card race.

There are six games remaining, and while Bonds, who refused to talk after the haunting defeat, has more time left than his team does, it doesn’t figure to get any easier for him when he takes those 69 homers to Houston for a three-game series that begins Tuesday night.

Enron Field may be a hitter’s haven--Bonds had four home runs in 16 at bats there last year--but the Astros are involved in a Central Division dogfight with the Cardinals. Both want to win the division rather than reaching the playoffs as the wild card, which at this point would force them to face Randy Johnson, Curt Schilling and the Diamondbacks in a five-game opening playoff series.

Bonds figures to see fewer strikes in Houston than he did while hitting two homers and walking five times in the three games against San Diego.

Of course, Bonds had hit 11 homers against the Padres this year, and the Giants had won 14 of the previous 18 meetings, so maybe San Diego could be excused for taking a different course.

Manager Bruce Bochy defended Sunday’s pair of four-pitch walks by Tollberg.

“We’re out there trying to make quality pitches,” he said. “We’re trying to work the guy the way he should be worked--very carefully. Obviously, he’s the guy we don’t want to beat us.”

How many good pitches did Bonds see?

“How the hell do I know?” said Tony Gwynn, who struck out as a pinch-hitter in the eighth inning after being honored before his final game in San Francisco. “I’m sitting in the dugout, but I’ll tell you this, if there were any good to hit, the way he’s going he would have hit them. If they pitch to him, sooner or later he’s going to [break the record].”

Bonds has walked 167 times, breaking the National League record of 162 that McGwire set in ’98 and only three shy of Babe Ruth’s 1923 major league mark.

His dad, former major league star Bobby Bonds, now a Giant scout, told a group of reporters before Sunday’s game that the “most amazing” thing about what his son is doing “is that he has been able to maintain his stroke for as long as he has while being pitched around as often as he has. He’s getting less than four at-bats a game. It’s just very hard to maintain your stroke when you don’t get a chance to use it.”

However, the senior Bonds said he is not surprised by anything his 37-year-old son is doing--”there is nothing he can’t do on the field”--and added he has never seen him more relaxed.

“It’s amazing to me how people think he’s probably only thinking about the home runs,” Bobby Bonds said. “We have dinner and he never mentions how he only needs a couple more to break the record. The only thing he talks about is catching the Diamondbacks. That’s what motivates him. That’s what he’s thinking about.”

Bonds would love to dump his October baggage, but if the Diamondbacks split their last six games, the Giants will have to go 5-1 for a tie.

Manager Dusty Baker talked as if some of the wind had been knocked out of him by Sunday’s loss, but he didn’t care to haggle over how the Padres pitched Bonds.

“Some clubs pitch around him more than others,” he said. “He had beat up on the Padres pretty good. We were hoping he’d get up again in the ninth, but it’s tough to beat a club over and over like we have the Padres. At some point, it’s going to be their turn to win. We’ve won the majority of close games [they are 27-21 in one-run decisions], but the big hit eluded us today.”

It generally falls on Jeff Kent to deliver it when Bonds is being pitched around, since he’s next in the batting order.

Kent drove in two runs Sunday but he is hitting .271 with 21 homers and 96 runs batted in compared to last year’s MVP statistics of .334 with 33 homers and 125 RBIs.

Kent and Bonds have never been dinner partners, and Kent sat at his locker Sunday and insisted he doesn’t see any difference in the way Bonds is being pitched.

“I’ve been hitting behind him for five years and I honestly don’t see a difference,” Kent said. “He’s more patient and selective and that’s why he’s coming up on 70 homers, but there were days like this at the beginning of the season too.”

Perhaps, but Orlando Cepeda for one was having trouble remembering them.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Chasing History

Barry Bonds is in pursuit of Mark McGwire’s major league record 70 home runs, set in 1998:

HOME RUNS AFTER 156 GAMES

BARRY BONDS 2001: 69

MARK McGWIRE 1998: 64

Bonds update: Went 0 for 2 with two walks and was hit by a pitch in San Francisco’s 5-4 loss to San Diego. The Giants’ next game is Tuesday at Houston.