Post by John on May 14, 2006 12:10:17 GMT -4
Barry, Giants now have to look in mirror
By Scott Miller
CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer
SAN FRANCISCO -- There are two wildly divergent versions of Barry Bonds co-existing right now: The reputation to whom opponents, fans and many members of the media continue to pay homage, and the aging slugger who is increasingly becoming exposed.
Right now, the slugger is nowhere close to the reputation.
It's become more and more clear during this homestand that the Giants no longer are sure even how to handle him -- when to play him, when to sit him, when to remove him from a game.
They've had a tail-wags-the-dog relationship with Bonds for a decade, anyway. He's pretty much made all of his decisions independently, and the Giants have gone along with them.
But now that Bonds is idling as a shell of what he once was, with no way of knowing whether he ever will regain his old form or whether these are the last gasps of a superstar stepping into has-been status, it is treading dangerously close to humiliation for both Bonds and the franchise.
Forget, for a moment, Bonds' attempt to eclipse Babe Ruth on baseball's all-time home run list. The better question is, when is the man's next hit going to show up?
Bonds is 1-for-16 with no RBI on the Giants' current homestand -- including 0-for-his-last-13.
Since pounding the longest home run in the brief history of Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia last Sunday, he's 1-for-17.
So much for Phillies manager Charlie Manuel's post-game prediction that night that Bonds looked like he was finding his groove.
What's going on has some of the trappings of what has occurred with other aging superstars in the past. Remember Willie Mays at the end? He was so humiliated by his eroding skills in 1973 that he wanted to retire early in the season. The New York Mets talked him into delaying it, and he shouldn't have. Frank Robinson? Willie Stargell? Nolan Ryan? Painful public deteriorations.
In Bonds' defense, he played in only 15 games last summer for the Giants. Having missed that much time, at his age, it probably was ridiculous for anybody to expect he'd be operating at even 75 percent of his former capacity in '06, let alone on the one or two cylinders at which he's operating now.
The man can hardly move anymore. The Mays statue proudly standing in front of The Park Formerly Known as Pac Bell has more range than Bonds does in left field. And at the plate, it's clear that his bad right knee cannot support his bulky frame.
A scout who has watched much of the current homestand described some of the problems he's seeing with Bonds at the plate: "He has no foundation because of the knee, which means much of the time, his swing mostly is coming from the waist up. He often is off-balance when he swings, which severely hampers any drive the legs should produce. He's lunging at pitches. He's having a miserable time reaching out and getting to pitches away."
Fastballs he once crushed, he's missing. Sometimes, he appears to be backing ever so slightly off the plate, a little more than he once did, so he can get around a little quicker on the inside stuff.
And then there's his defense. Twice on Friday night, Dodgers hitters sent drives into the left-center gap. Center fielder Steve Finley got to one and missed the other.
On one of those, an able-bodied left fielder easily would have been able to make the play. On another, an able-bodied left fielder would have at least had a chance to make the play.
"We know he has a lack of range," Giants manager Felipe Alou said after the Dodgers' 6-1 Friday win. "We know that. I don't know how much it hurts us. It didn't lose the game for us tonight.
"We know he lacks range. We know the reason why -- he didn't play last year. He's not 100 percent in shape right now.
"And he's going to be 42. I don't know many 42-year-olds that have good range."
Steve Finley, the man essentially playing a position-and-a-half right now? All of center field and half of left?
He's 41.
Maybe Alou is right, maybe many of these struggles can be attributed to Bonds' missing almost the entire season last year. Maybe it simply will take an extended period for him to grease up and start moving and swinging in sync again. But Bonds the man right now is so diminished when measured against his reputation that that day seems very far off.
Consequently, the Giants don't seem to be sure what to do with him. If anybody said anything to him about failing to run out a pop-up to second base Friday night -- he U-turned and took several steps toward the dugout before breaking into a spring when Jeff Kent dropped the ball -- the Giants weren't saying, so you can probably take that as a no. Bonds nearly was doubled up for a humiliating lack of effort.
Afterward, Bonds, who has lived a life in which he hasn't had to explain himself for a decade or more, wasn't talking.
Alou moved him to third in the order Saturday -- from fourth -- for the first time since 2003. This after finding Bonds in the whirlpool when the manager arrived at the park early Saturday and taking the opportunity to have a long talk with him.
Didn't matter, Bonds still took a collar.
What did Alou say to Bonds?
The manager kept it mostly general.
"With a hitter of that stature, you've got to be careful," Alou said. "What I'd like to see is Barry go back to being the hitter he is. Barry is not just a long ball guy, he's a hitter."
On moving him to third from fourth in the lineup, Alou said, "It's about getting a few hits, first. It's about getting his stroke back."
Undoubtedly, with a media contingent now traveling with him in anticipation of No. 714 and with the homestand dwindling, Bonds is pressing. But he has only talked to reporters once since last Sunday. Mostly, he's remained in his own world, where his entourage and attendants fetch him water and protein shakes and insulate him from the great, unwashed masses.
With Moises Alou on the disabled list and Bonds badly wanting to smash his historic homers in San Francisco, Alou has abandoned resting his one-time slugger on day games after night games. If Bonds starts Sunday, it will be his sixth consecutive game in the lineup.
Those aren't the only inconsistencies. Alou left Bonds in for the whole game during Thursday's 9-3 rout over the Chicago Cubs when he could have pulled him in the late innings to sneak him a little time off.
He didn't, though, and afterward Alou explained that the crowd of 40,000-plus wanted to see Bonds hit a fourth time (he did, in the eighth, and flied to center).
The mixed message was that Alou appeared to be appeasing the fans in the short term at the possible expense of Bonds' long-term availability.
Friday, the Dodgers led 5-1 in the seventh inning, and Alou left Bonds in the game -- even with the quick turnaround for Saturday's day game -- explaining that the Giants were within a grand slam of tying the game, so he wanted to leave Bonds in the game.
Yet on Saturday, he removed Bonds after his eighth-inning at-bat (a weak bouncer to first) even though, trailing 5-2, the Giants were less than a grand slam away.
In one sense, Alou got away with it because Omar Vizquel cracked a sacrifice fly with one out in the ninth to produce a stirring 6-5 comeback win for San Francisco.
But had Vizquel, say, struck out, Bonds' spot was up next -- and it would have been Jason Ellison stepping to the plate with the bases loaded and the score 5-5. Ellison entered the game as a defensive replacement for Bonds in the top of the ninth.
Twisted times indeed ... for the Giants, for Alou and, especially, for Bonds.
He's unaccustomed to failure when the eyes of the baseball world are on him, and it can't be easy for him to stomach.
"A couple of his at-bats were better," Alou judged. "The other ones were more or less what we've seen in the last 18 at-bats."
At this rate, Babe Ruth may be safe indefinitely.
By Scott Miller
CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer
SAN FRANCISCO -- There are two wildly divergent versions of Barry Bonds co-existing right now: The reputation to whom opponents, fans and many members of the media continue to pay homage, and the aging slugger who is increasingly becoming exposed.
Right now, the slugger is nowhere close to the reputation.
It's become more and more clear during this homestand that the Giants no longer are sure even how to handle him -- when to play him, when to sit him, when to remove him from a game.
They've had a tail-wags-the-dog relationship with Bonds for a decade, anyway. He's pretty much made all of his decisions independently, and the Giants have gone along with them.
But now that Bonds is idling as a shell of what he once was, with no way of knowing whether he ever will regain his old form or whether these are the last gasps of a superstar stepping into has-been status, it is treading dangerously close to humiliation for both Bonds and the franchise.
Forget, for a moment, Bonds' attempt to eclipse Babe Ruth on baseball's all-time home run list. The better question is, when is the man's next hit going to show up?
Bonds is 1-for-16 with no RBI on the Giants' current homestand -- including 0-for-his-last-13.
Since pounding the longest home run in the brief history of Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia last Sunday, he's 1-for-17.
So much for Phillies manager Charlie Manuel's post-game prediction that night that Bonds looked like he was finding his groove.
What's going on has some of the trappings of what has occurred with other aging superstars in the past. Remember Willie Mays at the end? He was so humiliated by his eroding skills in 1973 that he wanted to retire early in the season. The New York Mets talked him into delaying it, and he shouldn't have. Frank Robinson? Willie Stargell? Nolan Ryan? Painful public deteriorations.
In Bonds' defense, he played in only 15 games last summer for the Giants. Having missed that much time, at his age, it probably was ridiculous for anybody to expect he'd be operating at even 75 percent of his former capacity in '06, let alone on the one or two cylinders at which he's operating now.
The man can hardly move anymore. The Mays statue proudly standing in front of The Park Formerly Known as Pac Bell has more range than Bonds does in left field. And at the plate, it's clear that his bad right knee cannot support his bulky frame.
A scout who has watched much of the current homestand described some of the problems he's seeing with Bonds at the plate: "He has no foundation because of the knee, which means much of the time, his swing mostly is coming from the waist up. He often is off-balance when he swings, which severely hampers any drive the legs should produce. He's lunging at pitches. He's having a miserable time reaching out and getting to pitches away."
Fastballs he once crushed, he's missing. Sometimes, he appears to be backing ever so slightly off the plate, a little more than he once did, so he can get around a little quicker on the inside stuff.
And then there's his defense. Twice on Friday night, Dodgers hitters sent drives into the left-center gap. Center fielder Steve Finley got to one and missed the other.
On one of those, an able-bodied left fielder easily would have been able to make the play. On another, an able-bodied left fielder would have at least had a chance to make the play.
"We know he has a lack of range," Giants manager Felipe Alou said after the Dodgers' 6-1 Friday win. "We know that. I don't know how much it hurts us. It didn't lose the game for us tonight.
"We know he lacks range. We know the reason why -- he didn't play last year. He's not 100 percent in shape right now.
"And he's going to be 42. I don't know many 42-year-olds that have good range."
Steve Finley, the man essentially playing a position-and-a-half right now? All of center field and half of left?
He's 41.
Maybe Alou is right, maybe many of these struggles can be attributed to Bonds' missing almost the entire season last year. Maybe it simply will take an extended period for him to grease up and start moving and swinging in sync again. But Bonds the man right now is so diminished when measured against his reputation that that day seems very far off.
Consequently, the Giants don't seem to be sure what to do with him. If anybody said anything to him about failing to run out a pop-up to second base Friday night -- he U-turned and took several steps toward the dugout before breaking into a spring when Jeff Kent dropped the ball -- the Giants weren't saying, so you can probably take that as a no. Bonds nearly was doubled up for a humiliating lack of effort.
Afterward, Bonds, who has lived a life in which he hasn't had to explain himself for a decade or more, wasn't talking.
Alou moved him to third in the order Saturday -- from fourth -- for the first time since 2003. This after finding Bonds in the whirlpool when the manager arrived at the park early Saturday and taking the opportunity to have a long talk with him.
Didn't matter, Bonds still took a collar.
What did Alou say to Bonds?
The manager kept it mostly general.
"With a hitter of that stature, you've got to be careful," Alou said. "What I'd like to see is Barry go back to being the hitter he is. Barry is not just a long ball guy, he's a hitter."
On moving him to third from fourth in the lineup, Alou said, "It's about getting a few hits, first. It's about getting his stroke back."
Undoubtedly, with a media contingent now traveling with him in anticipation of No. 714 and with the homestand dwindling, Bonds is pressing. But he has only talked to reporters once since last Sunday. Mostly, he's remained in his own world, where his entourage and attendants fetch him water and protein shakes and insulate him from the great, unwashed masses.
With Moises Alou on the disabled list and Bonds badly wanting to smash his historic homers in San Francisco, Alou has abandoned resting his one-time slugger on day games after night games. If Bonds starts Sunday, it will be his sixth consecutive game in the lineup.
Those aren't the only inconsistencies. Alou left Bonds in for the whole game during Thursday's 9-3 rout over the Chicago Cubs when he could have pulled him in the late innings to sneak him a little time off.
He didn't, though, and afterward Alou explained that the crowd of 40,000-plus wanted to see Bonds hit a fourth time (he did, in the eighth, and flied to center).
The mixed message was that Alou appeared to be appeasing the fans in the short term at the possible expense of Bonds' long-term availability.
Friday, the Dodgers led 5-1 in the seventh inning, and Alou left Bonds in the game -- even with the quick turnaround for Saturday's day game -- explaining that the Giants were within a grand slam of tying the game, so he wanted to leave Bonds in the game.
Yet on Saturday, he removed Bonds after his eighth-inning at-bat (a weak bouncer to first) even though, trailing 5-2, the Giants were less than a grand slam away.
In one sense, Alou got away with it because Omar Vizquel cracked a sacrifice fly with one out in the ninth to produce a stirring 6-5 comeback win for San Francisco.
But had Vizquel, say, struck out, Bonds' spot was up next -- and it would have been Jason Ellison stepping to the plate with the bases loaded and the score 5-5. Ellison entered the game as a defensive replacement for Bonds in the top of the ninth.
Twisted times indeed ... for the Giants, for Alou and, especially, for Bonds.
He's unaccustomed to failure when the eyes of the baseball world are on him, and it can't be easy for him to stomach.
"A couple of his at-bats were better," Alou judged. "The other ones were more or less what we've seen in the last 18 at-bats."
At this rate, Babe Ruth may be safe indefinitely.