Well the Giants closed their home series and Bonds is still at 754. They are headed to L.A and San Diego next. The question is now, will Bonds hit the home run on the road or wait till he gets to San Francisco?

It’s a complex issue because Barry would love to hit the homerun in S.F instead. However, he also knows how important the team needs to win. I think unless Barry is put in a situation where the at-bat will change the game, he most likely will be going for more contact type hits while on the road.

He will probably save his home run swing for when he gets back to S.F. I think he will just change his swing and focus on getting on base via a a good base hit. Bonds can be an effective contact and line drive hitter anyways, so I think thats what he’ll be going for until 756 is hit. Then again, who knows. Bonds is probably going to sit out tuesdays game, so there will be about 4-5 games he will wind up playing on the road.

Bonds hits #754, making him one short of tying Hank Aaron and Pinch Hitter Mark Sweeney took sole possesion of 2nd place for all-time pinch hits at 151.

It was a rare day of no wind, so the ballpark played very small. Barry on a full count, slammed it center field. Wind or no wind he hit the fast ball deep and no question it was going to go out. The guy who caught it was whisked away with security around him. For the rest of the at-bats the walking area over right field was jam packed with people ready for the really special home run ball. Unfortunately, the rest of the pitchers didn’t want anything to do with Bonds and walked him unintentionally 4 times the rest of the night.

Giants looked like they were going to have another loss in their hands at certain points in the game, but they came back with some home runs throughout the game to comeback 3 different times and win 12-10. Giants are continuing to have better offense lately. Bonds seems to think the home run race is giving new energy to the offense. He may be right, whatever the case let’s hope it continues.

Pinch hitters don’t get enough credit, it is considered one of the hardest jobs to do. Congratulations to Mark Sweeney and hopefully he can break the all-time pinch hit record.

Well the game was exciting and was on course to be one of the greatest late inning comebacks for the Giants. Unfortunately, they lost in the end so I’ll spare the details. The highlights are Pedro Feliz continues his hot bat. As predicted in my last blog post, Feliz seems to be the one who is trying to get the offense going again.

Bud Selig was at the game and announced today he would try to follow around as much as he could, to watch Barry Bonds break the record. The highlight for Bonds today was not offense, but when he did a unbelievable diving catch and when the Braves infielder hit him in the back when trying to do a double play, which resulted in keeping a extra inning game going.

Giants won 2 out of 3 games against Milwaukee. Brewers are one of the hardest teams to beat at home, so it was nice to see the Giants give the Brewers a run for their money. Giants offense was medium to high scoring for all 3 games, which hasn’t happened in a long time for them.

It looks like Pedro Feliz is “waking up too” the last few days. It always seems like to me, he is an indicator of the teams performance. When he does good, usually the team is doing good or will be doing so soon. Right now they need their hitting to get hot, and Pedro Feliz getting hot and their series at Milwaukee, are both good signs.

Giants after taking 3 days of rest at Wrigley Field, started today. In the bottom of the 1st Morris gave up 4 runs, as a result of some very sloppy fielding from the Giants. It was a depressing game for Giants fan. Until Barry stepped up in the top of the 2nd.

On the first pitch of his at bat he slammed a ball out of the Wrigley ball park’s right field. Then in his next at bat he hit an opposite field shallow ball that got 2 RBIs. He then walked. On his last at bat of the game it was 2 outs and it got up to a full count. In the next pitch Barry slammed it right into center field with a fierce wind working blowing in. It took a lot of power to get that ball out, only a guy like Barry is able to get it out with the wind blowing in like that.

The Giants lost 9-8 and it was amazing to have such a high scoring game with the wind blowing in. It was Bond’s game today getting 6 RBIs. He now has 71 career multi-home run games. Only Babe ruth has more at 72.

News store

This news is going to make a lot of Giants fans frustrated. There seems to be more against Sabean then for him. I have to admit, that I think he has played a role in some good moves over the years such as keeping Barry and getting Zito. Although Zito hasn’t worked out as planned, he has time to prove himself.

I wish Sabean would actively get more players from the minors or fresh young talent, instead of always relying on buying veterans (or has beens). If you look at the A’s they do that frequently, and they actually have done pretty good over the years. However, Sabean seems to share my philosophy about not constantly trading people like the A’s do. I like the fact that there is more of a sense of “family” among the Giants. The A’s constantly get someone good or allow them to develop, and then sell them for profit.

I like to leave it up to the players to do there part to get the job done. Not everything that is good or bad on paper works the same way in the real world anyways. Look at the 07 Yankees or the 03 Marlins team. You can read a lot of heated posts from other Giants bloggers in my blogroll.

Bonds has been talking about this since early this year.

Here is the news story

It was always unclear about the main driving reason for wanting to come back. I believe it’s a lot of factors, including making sure he solidifies well past the home run record. Some quotes from the article also makes me think a lot of it is also the importance of getting to that 3000 hit mark. He most likely will not come real close to hitting that this season.

This was an unusual game today with a lot of good work by both teams, but I’m picking Lincecum as the crucial player. Starting pitcher Lincecum kept the game at 2 runs for St Louis, when he got a base hit. With Lincecum having no real hitting experience in the professional leagues until recently, anytime he gets a hit it is a big deal. Then on Randy winn’s basehit, the 3rd base coach, lannery, tried to halt him from running in, but Lincecum went right past him. Luckily, Pujols cut it off and didn’t see Lincecum running in. That blooper by Lincecum wound up being a gift as the run tied the game 2-2.

Lincecum then was able to keep the game at 2 runs for st louis until he left in the 6th inning. The Giants later in the game scored 3 runs as a result of 3 fielding errors by St. Louis shortshop Miles. It was unbelievable to see so many errors by one player in just one inning. You almost felt sorry for him even as a Giants fan. In his defense he wasn’t the everyday shortstop.

St Louis almost came back to tie the game in a big inning, but fell one short 7-6. Miles had a shot to tie it up in the bottom of the 9th, but failed to do so.

In the first at bat at Cinnicinati, bonds hit a deep center field homerun. The pitcher gave him 3 fastballs, which is unusual for Bonds, and probably the most fastballs he has had in a row from a pitcher all season. That got the Giants in the lead 2-0. Bonds got walked in his next at bat when there was an open base on 1st. If Bonds didn’t get walked so much he would have as many home runs as Griffey right now this season, and Bonds is much older.

Zito cost them their lead though when he gave up 5 walks in a row to allow them to tie it up. A grand slam later in the game after Zito left the game kept the giants from staying close. They lost 7-3.

Bonds is going to start the all-star game in outfield. I was surprised that he made it in by the votes of the fans since he was down 100,000 the night before. He definitely deserves to be in and I am glad he made it. I guess all the loyal Giants fans voted at the last minute and got Barry in so all-star manager Larussa didn’t have to vote him in as a reserve.

Bonds now has a .304 batting average and he leads the major leagues in walks and in on base percentage at an incredible .504.