Bonds market takes dip -- even in SF

June 20, 2004|On baseball, Gordon Edes, Globe Staff

SAN FRANCISCO -- For those offended by Barry Bonds's temperature reading of Boston's racial climate -- and apparently there was no end to the grief he took from announcers Steve Lyons and Thom Brennaman during yesterday afternoon's nationally televised broadcast -- his sole utterance after the Giants' 6-4 win over the Red Sox came a day or two late. "I have no comment," Bonds said to one reporter before walking silently past a cluster of inquisitors presumably waiting to hear the game's marquee slugger explain a second straight subpar effort. He is now hitless in seven at-bats against a Sox team unafraid to pitch to him, while exposing him as a poor imitation of the Gold Glove outfielder he has been for much of his 19-year career.

Even a home crowd inclined to overlook the more egregious aspects of Bonds's personality and play took exception to his jog down the first base line yesterday in the eighth inning of a game freshly tied by the Red Sox in the top of the inning. Bonds, swinging at a 2-and-0 pitch from Sox reliever Alan Embree, rolled the ball off the end of his bat toward shortstop Cesar Crespo (who had shifted behind second) and made a halfhearted exit from the batter's box. Too late, he reacted when Bellhorn booted the ball, and there were boos from the sellout crowd of 42,499 in SBC Park. Some of those boos no doubt were also giving vent to their displeasure over Bonds's misplay of Trot Nixon's blooper in the top of the inning, which glanced off his hand for an error and enabled a hustling Gabe Kapler to score from first with the last of three runs on the play.

A second straight defeat to the Sox might have kept Bonds on the hot seat a trifle longer, but Edgardo Alfonzo spared him further discomfort by trumping the Sox at their own game here, coming off the bench to launch a pinch-hit, two-run home run off Embree.

"Edgardo was getting the day off because he doesn't hit Pedro [Martinez]," said Giants manager Felipe Alou, who had granted the infielder permission to leave the premises a mere hour or so before the game to pick up his wife at the airport. "But we saw the lefty in the bullpen and no righty and said it's time for him to go up there."

For exquisite timing in employing hitters off the bench, Terry Francona had been rolling only sevens at Willie Mays Plaza.

In Friday's 14-9 win over the Giants, Francona used three pinch hitters. Kevin Millar hit a three-run home run, Kapler walked and scored, and Jason Varitek singled and scored.