Barry Bonds gave the Giants the lead twice tonight. The second time they were able to hold onto it as they improved their season record to 14-12, 2 games behind the NL West leading LA Dodgers.

Barry Bonds hit his 743rd career home run and his 9th of the season tonight in the 4th inning to give the Giants a 2 to 0 lead. Later in the 8th inning he hit a 2 run single with the bases loaded to give the Giants a 4 to 3 lead. Later in the 8th, Giants catcher Bengie Molina singled in an insurance run and the Giants held on to win 5 to 3.

Bonds #s are now at .343/.511/.791

He's on pace for 60 home runs and 140 RBI.

Even as the biggest Bonds hyper in the world I don't think he'll finish with 60 home runs. And he's even less likely to finish with 140 RBI with this very weak Giants offense. But regardless of that, it's quite a show he's putting on. And I think he's got a very real shot of finishing over a .500 OBP again. That's for sure. If he can finish with an over .500 OBP it would be his 5th season over .500! Before Barry the last players to accomplish this feat were Ted Williams & Mickey Mantle who both did it in 1957.

The only players in the live ball era to have an OBP over .500 for a full season are Babe Ruth (5 seasons with a peak of .545 in 1923), Barry Bonds (4 seasons with a peak of .609 in 2004), Ted Williams (2 seasons with a peak of .553 in 1941), Mickey Mantle (once in 1957 at .512), and Rogers Hornsby (once in 1924 at .507.) This is rarefied air for sure.

Amazingly Williams also just missed .500 multiple times (.499 in 1942, .499 in 1947, .497 in 1948, and .490 in 1949.)

But perhaps the most impressive way of looking at what Bonds is doing is this: In the 80 seasons since 1926 there have been 7 seasons where a player has had at least a .500 OBP: 4 of those seasons have been by Bonds, 2 by Williams, and 1 by Mantle.

Bonds has a slight shot of passing Lou Gehrig for 3rd on the career OBP leaders but he'd probably have to hang on for next year (at an extremely high level) to do it.

For your edufication:

Career OBP Leaders:
1. Ted Williams .482
2. Babe Ruth .474
3. Lou Gehrig .447
4. Barry Bonds .443
5. Rogers Hornsby .435
6. Ty Cobb .433
7. Todd Helton* .432
8. Jimmie Foxx .428
9. Tris Speaker .428
10. Eddie Collins .424

*50% of games @ Coors Field greatly warp career stats. Helton's career OBP at Coors is .468 (!?) and his career OBP anywhere else is .393. When you take away this ridiculous advantage Helton barely ranks in the top 100 much less the top 10. Any player who plays their home games at Coors should have their stats discounted. I think it's completely unfair that they are allowed to lead the league in anything with this ridiculous advantage.

What other active players rank highly on the career OBP ranks?

Frank Thomas .423, Albert Pujols .417, Lance Berkman .416, Jason Giambi .413, Bobby Abreu .411, Manny Ramirez .410, Brian Giles .407, and Chipper Jones .402

Bonds also tied Stan Musial for 4th all time on the career RBI leaders tonight. If he can stay healthy he should pass Lou Gehrig for 3rd this season. Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth are quite are pretty much unreachable at 1st and 2nd in RBI total. Unless Bonds plays till he is 46. Which I'm not ruling out.

Labels: Barry Bonds