• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers

Bonds homerless as Marlins top Giants

Jul 30, 2007 - 12:28 AM SAN FRANCISCO (Ticker) -- Barry Bonds' pursuit of Hank Aaron will move south to Los Angeles.

While Bonds remains stuck at 754 career home runs, one shy of tying Hank Aaron's all-time record, the Florida Marlins amassed 17 hits en route to an 8-5 victory over the San Francisco Giants on Sunday.

Bonds went 1-for-4 with an infield single, two groundouts and a flyout as Florida pitchers continued to challenge the controversial slugger.

The seven-time National League Most Valuable Player has struggled since belting his 754th home run on Friday. Bonds went 0-for-3 with a walk in San Francisco's 4-3 win Saturday.

After a day off, Bonds will try his luck against Mark Hendrickson and the Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday. For his career, Bonds is 2-for-8 against the 33-year-old lefthander with no home runs.

While Bonds had a power shortage on Sunday, Miguel Cabrera did not.

After scoring Florida's first run on Josh Willingham's triple in the first inning, Cabrera deposited Matt Morris' curveball into the left field seats to give the Marlins a 2-0 lead.

Cabrera became the first player in franchise history to record five consecutive 25-homer seasons. Cabrera, who does not consider himself a home run hitter, downplayed his milestone and marveled at what Bonds has accomplished.

"He's the best hitter I've seen in my life," Cabrera said. "You want to see it but the way we've been playing, if he hits one, we're going to lose because we're not playing very good right now. If he hits a home run and we win by 10 runs, it's OK with me."

San Francisco bounced back with a five-run fourth inning, highlighted by Ryan Klesko's two-run double. Klesko came around to score on Omar Vizquel's single to center and Guillermo Rodriguez's two-run double gave the Giants a 5-2 lead.

Florida cut the deficit to 5-4 after Cabrera's RBI single and Jeremy Hermida's sacrifice fly in the fifth.

"I was getting ahead of hitters a lot better and getting them to put the ball in play a lot sooner," Florida starter Sergio Mitre said. "That's kind of what happened in the fourth inning. I fell behind a lot of hitters and kind of put myself in a hole. That's unacceptable on my part. I had a three-run lead and I can't let that happen."

Mitre (5-5) claimed his approach to Bonds was simple and one that the Marlins executed consistently throughout the series.

"It's the big leagues. You can't get nervous," Mitre said. "You just have to make your pitch to him and get him out. It was the same as I've been doing all year. Sink the ball to every hitter and I did the same to him and tried and get ahead. If you fall behind, you're keyholed and he can wait for a specific pitch."

Hermida, whose run-scoring double tied the game in the seventh, came around to score on Jason Wood's single to give the Marlins a 6-5 advantage.

The Marlins capped the scoring in the eighth, courtesy of Dan Uggla's sacrifice fly and Cabrera's RBI single to center.

Mitre (5-5), who retired the first 10 batters, weathered the storm in the fourth to pick up the win. The righthander allowed five runs on six hits in 6 2/3 innings.

"Sergio did a nice job. He gave up those five runs that one inning, but he settled down and got ground balls," Florida manager Fredi Gonzalez said. "It's good to get a win. It seems like it's been almost a month."

Three Marlins pitchers bridged the gap - allowing just one hit in the process - before Kevin Gregg retired the side in the ninth for his 21st save.

Morris (7-7), who has been the subject of trade rumors in recent weeks, allowed six runs on 13 hits in seven innings. He has not notched a win since June 11 against Toronto.

"It's the game," Morris said. "You give up the broken bat or the blooper (hit) and the next thing you know there's two on and then you make a mistake and it could be a three-run homer or a double in the gap that scores two and that's frustrating - but you need to continue to make pitches."

"Well, I thought he pitched better than the numbers indicate," San Francisco manager Bruce Bochy said. "He gave up a lot of cheap hits, a lot of balls we couldn't quite get to. That's a tough loss for him. We had one big inning, but what hurt us was we stopped scoring. They just kept coming back on us."

Bochy also indicated he thought Bonds would likely start Tuesday at Los Angeles, amid speculation he may sit out the opening game against the Giants' bitter rivals.

"He feels great. He has no soreness going on," Bochy said. "I think the day off is coming at a good time. I think all of them could use a little break right now. Hopefully this day off will freshen us up."

Many Giants players are growing weary of the Bonds chase. Nearly every interview, regardless of what an individual accomplished during the game, eventually goes back to No. 25.

"This is going to be pretty intense," center fielder Dave Roberts said. "Some of the fans would argue that they'd love to see it and be witnesses to something great in their own ballpark whether they admit it or not. And I think some don't want any part of it, but that's all out of our control and Barry's going to do what he's going to do."