Bonds Is Paying Off Regardless

Barry Bonds is unavoidable, and yet he’s meaningless. He’s the focal point of the opposition, the fans and the media, but sometimes he’s nothing more than a chess piece getting moved around the board.

The deeper the San Francisco Giants move into the postseason, the less their fate rests in Bonds’ hands. His reputation and potential have more to do with the Giants moving to within one victory of the World Series than his statistics.

How unimportant are his numbers to the Giants? After the fifth and sixth hitters, Benito Santiago and J.T. Snow drove in all the runs in the Giants’ 4-3 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday night, San Francisco is 5-0 in the postseason games in which Bonds did not hit a home run, 1-3 when he did homer.

It takes the batters ahead of him reaching base for him to get a chance to do damage, and it’s up to the guys behind him to come through after the many times when Bonds isn’t allowed to swing the bat. Otherwise, all he can do is trot down to first base and stand there.

If Bonds continues to hit the ball well it will only better his postseason stats, caulking the cracks in an otherwise outstanding career.

Perhaps he isn’t content to rest on his records and acclaim as the game’s greatest hitter. But they’ve already served their purpose. They dictate how the Cardinals will play him. For two consecutive games, St. Louis Manager Tony LaRussa has demonstrated that he’s willing to break from conventional wisdom and intentionally walk Bonds even when he represents the go-ahead run.

Great as Bonds might be, he can’t score from first base without help.

That’s where Snow and Santiago came in. Snow hit a long drive that bounced off a the wall in left center for a double that drove in two and tied the score, 2-2, in the bottom of the sixth inning. Bonds, standing on first after a walk, provided the rare sight of a baserunner breaking into a home run trot before he saw where Snow’s ball landed and revved up the motor to score.

After Bonds was intentionally walked with two out and nobody on in the eighth, Santiago launched a ball high into the night that landed in the left-field seats for the go-ahead home run. They held up to give the Giants a 3-1 lead in the National League championship series, even though closer Robb Nen gave up a run in a shaky ninth inning.

When Bonds hit a game-tying, three-run homer into San Francisco Bay in Game 3 on Saturday, it turned out to be nothing more than a soggy souvenir after the Cardinals’ Eli Marrero came back with a solo home run to give St. Louis a 5-4 victory.

Bonds had only one harmless single in four trips to the plate Sunday, but he scored two runs thanks to Snow and Santiago.

“The way I look at it, they spend a lot of their attention and time on Barry and what to do with him,” Snow said. “You put him on first base, we like it. We like hitting with a guy on base. We like getting the pitcher in the stretch. Barry can steal a base, he can score on a ball in the gap. So there’s a lot of positives that can happen with pitching around him.”

Santiago has even come to find the positive in what could be considered a slap in the face: intentionally walking Bonds to get to him over and over again. He said he takes solace in Manager Dusty Baker’s advice.

“He’s been loosening me up out there and told me not to try to do too much,” Santiago said.

Officially, Bonds was intentionally walked only once Sunday. But you might as well have called Bonds’ sixth-inning walk intentional as well because Bonds saw four consecutive balls, none coming close to the plate

It worked temporarily, because Santiago struck out in the sixth. But then Snow doubled. And when Santiago got another chance two innings later, he came through.

He looked for the same pitch -- an inside fastball -- St. Louis reliever Rick White used to strike him out in the sixth and drove it into the seats.

Baker doesn’t expect the opposition -- be it LaRussa or potentially his old buddy Mike Scioscia of the Angels -- to change their approach.

“I think they will still put him on,” Baker said. “He’s hit 600 and whatever home runs.”

He turned to Santiago on the news conference dais.

“How many home runs you got, Benny?”

“I got 201,” Santiago said, which is true only if you count Sunday night’s.

“OK,” Baker said. “You guys do the math.”

You could add in Snow’s 159 career homers and it still wouldn’t come close to Bonds’ 613.

Perhaps that’s why Bonds handicaps his batting practice home run competition and takes on Santiago and Snow. Santiago said they win sometimes, but they were overmatched Sunday. Bonds hit blasts all over Pacific Bell Park. He hit one to center that hit the top of a shed and bounced off a wall that’s nearly 490 feet from home plate. He hit another one that dinged a flag pole high above the 421 mark in right center. He hit a few that splashed into McCovey Cove beyond right field.

Bonds won, 9-8. Then he savored the spoils of victory and commanded the losers to gather all the stray balls around the cage.

“Pick it up!” Bonds said. “Pick that ... up! Pick it up!”

Snow and Santiago did as they were told ... then went right on picking up for Bonds and the Giants through the rest of the night.

J.A. Adande can be reached at: j.a.adande@latimes.com