Bonds’ Bat Does Talking in 3-2 Victory

Barry Bonds ended a 10-game drought with his first home run against Randy Johnson. How he felt about it is anybody’s guess.

As has been the case recently, Bonds refused to talk to reporters after the San Francisco Giants’ 3-2 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Saturday.

Johnson talked, but not about Bonds’ homer.

“Anybody else?” he said when the subject was brought up.

That left it to Giant Manager Dusty Baker.

“It’s never easy to get Randy,” Baker said. “Barry got one today, but Randy’s won most of the battles.”

J.T. Snow singled in the go-ahead run against reliever Matt Mantei in the eighth inning after Arizona had rallied to tie the score, 2-2, on Craig Counsell’s two-out single with the bases loaded in the seventh.

Baker marveled at the number of clutch performances.

“We got ‘em, they got ‘em,” he said. “Boy, it was hard-fought down to the end. The crowd was into it. That was like straight-up playoff, World Series atmosphere right there.”

Bonds, the only left-hander in the lineup, had gone 33 at-bats without a home run, his longest lull this season, and 31 at-bats against Johnson without a homer.

Johnson struck out five in a row leading up to Bonds’ homer, the first four on 13 pitches. But on a 2-and-0 count with two out in the sixth inning, Bonds slammed one 417 feet onto the porch in right-center field, his 26th home run.

Johnson struck out 10 in seven innings to move ahead of Don Sutton into sixth on the career strikeout list with 3,583 but failed to win for the second consecutive start. He gave up two runs and seven hits and walked one.

“I thought I pitched pretty well,” said Johnson, who appeared to be in a foul mood after the game. “I made a couple of questionable pitches, but you go out there and grind and do your best.”