Foregone Conclusion

Barry Bonds took his family on a ski trip to Aspen, Colo., last winter, but the San Francisco Giant slugger claimed he didn’t hit the slopes. “The kids had a fun time, but I didn’t get on the chair lift,” Bonds said. “I’m afraid of heights.”

He better get used to them. The way Bonds is ascending baseball’s all-time home run list, he’s going to have a serious case of acrophobia pretty soon.

Bonds mashed two more home runs Wednesday night, a pair of tape-measure blasts that traveled a combined 902 feet, to lead the Giants to a 12-0 blowout of the Dodgers before a crowd of 36,374 at Dodger Stadium.

Added to the two homers he hit Tuesday, Bonds has 571 home runs, moving him within two of Harmon Killebrew for sixth on the all-time list and within 12 of Mark McGwire at No. 5.

At the rate he’s going--2002 feels like an extension of Bonds’ astonishing 2001 season, when he shattered McGwire’s single-season record with 73 home runs--Hank Aaron’s all-time record of 755 home runs appears within reach for a 37-year-old who has gotten better and stronger with age.

“You start getting close to Hank Aaron, pretty soon you’ll be able to levitate,” San Francisco Manager Dusty Baker said when asked if Bonds had reached a new stratosphere of stardom. “What’s greater than great?”

How about four home runs in the span of six at-bats Tuesday and Wednesday, a daily double that marked only the second time in major league history (Eddie Mathews, Milwaukee Braves, 1958) a player has homered twice on the first two days of the season?

How about a 443-foot home run into the right-field pavilion on a 1-2 Hideo Nomo fastball in the first inning Wednesday, and following that with a 459-foot blast off Terry Mulholland into the same section, only deeper, in the fourth?

Bonds’ homers highlighted a 15-hit barrage that included Benito Santiago’s three-run homer and winning pitcher Russ Ortiz’s two-run homer in the fourth, both of which contributed to a six-run inning that gave San Francisco a 10-0 lead.

“Yeah, it can be demoralizing losing like this,” left fielder Brian Jordan said. “I don’t mind losing 3-1 or 4-1, but when you get your butt handed to you like we have the last two days, it’s not good.”

Showing some mercy, Baker lifted Bonds in the bottom of the fifth inning, but not before Bonds, who already has nine runs batted in, left Nomo, Mulholland and the Dodgers in tatters.

Nomo ran into immediate trouble in the first, walking leadoff batter Tsuyoshi Shinjo and giving up a hit-and-run single to Rich Aurilia. Nomo got ahead of Bonds, 1-and-2 in the count, but instead of burying a couple of forkballs--supposedly Nomo’s best pitch--in the dirt, Nomo tried to sneak a fastball inside. Some trickery. The pitch was thigh-high, over the heart of the plate, and Bonds deposited it over the wall in right for a three-run homer.

“I didn’t think about throwing a forkball at that point,” Nomo said. “I was just thinking about throwing a fastball. Unfortunately, it was an easy pitch to hit.”

Nomo labored through the second and third, walking Shinjo with the bases loaded to give the Giants a 4-0 lead in the third, and Dodger Manager Jim Tracy replaced him with Mulholland to start the fourth.

Before Bonds, who was intentionally walked with a runner on second in the second inning, led off the fourth, Dodger catcher Paul LoDuca went to the mound for a chat with Mulholland, perhaps a reminder not to throw Bonds anything he could hit.

Instead, Mulholland hung a 1-0 slider that Bonds pummeled, sending it into the right-field seats for his fourth home run of the season and his eighth off the Dodger left-hander, tying Mulholland with Greg Maddux and John Smoltz for the most home runs given up to Bonds.

Mulholland wised up in the fifth, throwing four consecutive balls to Bonds--one that nearly hit him--but that produced no satisfaction for Mulholland, who was rocked for eight runs on seven hits in two innings.

Most pitchers stayed away from Bonds in 2001, and Bonds set a major league record with 177 walks, but that didn’t prevent him from walloping 73 homers. Before the game, Tracy was asked why teams even bother pitching to Bonds.

“The guy hitting behind him [Reggie Sanders] had 33 homers last year, so he’s not exactly a slouch,” Tracy said. “Nor will [injured cleanup batter Jeff] Kent be when he comes back. You pitch away from Barry Bonds, and you’re pitching to the 2000 [National League] most valuable player.”

Tracy said the situation will dictate strategy. Bonds homered with two on in the second inning Tuesday to make it 5-1, and he added a solo homer in the seventh to give San Francisco an 8-2 lead.

“If the score is 7-2, are we going to pitch around him?” Tracy said. “No, we won’t.”

After Wednesday night, he might want to re-consider.

“He’s not going to hit a thousand home runs this year,” Mulholland said. “If he does, I guess we’ll have to quit pitching to him.”

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Connect Four

Tracking Barry Bonds’ home runs:

No.1--Bonds got off to a roaring start by homering on opening day for the second consecutive year, the fourth time overall. The 394-foot line drive to left came off Kevin Brown in the second inning Tuesday.

No.2--With a 447-foot blast inside the right-field foul pole off Omar Daal in the seventh, Bonds became only the 10th player to reach the loge section in Dodger Stadium.

No.3--Bonds got the Giants going with a 443-foot three-run home run to right-center off Hideo Nomo in the first inning Wednesday.

No.4--Bonds became the second player to hit two homers in each of his team’s first two games (joining Hall of Famer Eddie Mathews, who did it in 1958). Bonds drove Terry Mulholland’s breaking ball 459 feet into the right-center-field bleachers in the fourth.