Without Alou, pitches getting scarce
Giants manager Felipe Alou has a problem. His son, Moises, is out for at least two weeks with a sprained ankle from the night before, and the manager needs someone to hit in the fifth spot behind Bonds.

The cupboard, though, is nearly empty.

The task falls almost out of default to 41-year-old Steve Finley, who was signed this year for just this kind of insurance.

“My concern is now they’ll walk Barry,” Alou says. “I wasn’t concerned with Moises behind him.”

It’s a good night for hitting at Citizens Bank Park, where so many home runs were hit last year that they had to move back the fences in left field. The wind is blowing strong to right field, and fly balls are carrying into the seats during batting practice.

The struggle continues, though, for Bonds on the 75th birthday of Mays, his godfather. He walks only once, but his only hit is a seeing eye blooper that falls between three Phillies in shallow left.

Bonds is now 1-for-10 on the road trip with one game remaining. Pitchers who used to fear Bonds are now challenging him, and he has been walked intentionally only once.

As a final indignity, Bonds couldn’t get out of the way of Finley’s grounder in the eighth. It hits him, costing the Giants a crucial out as they lose 4-1 and drop to 1-3 on the trip.

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Bonds blows off the media once again. On his reality show, “Bonds on Bonds” this week, though, he compares his problems to those of Muhammad Ali in the 1960s.

“He also made the statement that ‘I can’t get justice in my own country,”’ Bonds says about Ali. “I’ll never, ever forget that.”

Bonds is a student of baseball, but apparently not one of history. Ali took a stand against the draft for moral and religious purposes. Bonds is taking no stands.

714 is still out there
The trip is about over, Bonds’ last night in Philly, one last serenade of “Balco Barry” from the fans in the left field stands, who have turned out for the nationally televised Sunday night game.

Bonds gets his home run, but No. 714 is still out there.

His manager always thought Bonds would catch Ruth at home anyway: Alou points out that all of Bonds’ big home runs have come in San Francisco. Now Bonds can do it in front of fans who still believe in their hero, despite all the evidence against him.

The Giants won’t board a plane until early Monday morning, then take a six-hour flight across country. By the time they get home, it will be daylight and there will be a makeup game that night against Houston.

A season that began badly, however, is quickly turning into a season gone bad. The crowds will be friendlier back home, but that’s also where Bonds faces an even worse fate than inquisitive reporters — a grand jury investigating whether he committed perjury when he told another grand jury that he never knowingly took steroids.

Then it will be back on the road again, where a long season will seem so much longer than any of the ones before.