One other detail bears explaining, since you may run across it in the boxscore — Bonds stole his second base of the season. It came after his single, when he inexplicably took off running with Colorado pitcher Taylor Buchholz in the stretch position. Bonds took a couple steps and then stopped, as if he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t have been doing. But when Buchholz continued to pay him no mind, Bonds took off again and was safe without a throw.

Weird.

Bonds addressed the media after the game, bristling at the mention of his home runs (he is now nine behind Henry Aaron’s career record), preferring to discuss team-oriented issues. He dismissed his power outage (“Been there before,” he said), and his proximity to history (“Not at this point”). Instead he spoke of team efforts, everybody contributing to the cause, the subdued mood in the clubhouse.

He spoke as any committed team player would speak. Only the dynamic has changed. He’s not the full-service superstar he used to be. He plays all facets of the game, but he only excels at run production (and only then when he gets pitches to hit). But excel he must — to help offset his substandard defense and station-to-station baserunning.

The truth is, if you were assessing Bonds as a guy who just walked out of the cornfield, instead of the seven-time MVP we’ve watched over the years, his scouting report would read similar to the one the Brooklyn Dodgers prepared for Yankees great Joe DiMaggio in anticipation of the 1951 World Series:

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“He can’t stop quickly and throw hard. You can take the extra base on him. He can’t run and won’t bunt. His reflexes are very slow, and he can’t pull a good fastball at all.”

OK, that last part doesn’t apply to Bonds. He can knock a fastball into McCovey Cove faster than you can sing, “Happy birthday to you, you’re a hundred and two … ”

But the rest applies — so much so that if Bonds isn’t producing runs in bulk, he doesn’t break even as a player. Nor do the Giants as a team.