All Eyes on Bonds Heading Into NLCS

ST. LOUIS (AP) _ Tony La Russa kept tossing hints in Barry Bonds' direction, as if he was trying to tempt the San Francisco star with hanging curveballs. <br><br>Every time he was asked about Bonds,

Wednesday, October 9th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

ST. LOUIS (AP) _ Tony La Russa kept tossing hints in Barry Bonds' direction, as if he was trying to tempt the San Francisco star with hanging curveballs.

Every time he was asked about Bonds, it seemed, the St. Louis manager returned to the same theme _ if the slugger wanted to swing in the NL championship series, he might have to be a little less selective at the plate.

There was this from La Russa on Tuesday: ``Barry has developed a great eye. At some point, he has to decide how much he wants to expand his zone.''

And then this: ``Guys like Mark (McGwire) aren't going to get a ball to hit. They've got to expand their strike zone a little bit. I'm not going to second-guess Dusty or Barry Bonds.''

And this: ``(Ted) Williams got the same comment, that he never expanded his zone. There are some situations where that might be appropriate. That would be my only critique of a guy like Williams. I prefer (Stan) Musial's approach. He would expand.''

Was Bonds listening?

Hardly.

About an hour later, Bonds stepped into the cage for batting practice. He looked at a pitch that was a tad low, then sent the next two clanging off empty seats beyond the right-field wall at Busch Stadium.

``I mean, it's hard to ask a man with that much discipline to expand his zone,'' Giants manager Dusty Baker said. ``The more you expand your zone, the better chance you have of making an out because most of the pitches they already are throwing him are probably low-percentage in the first place.''

Bonds got enough to hit in the last week. He reversed his playoff misfortunes and sent San Francisco into the next round, hitting his third home run of the series as the Giants beat Atlanta 3-1 Monday night in the decisive Game 5.

So naturally, nearly all the questions looking ahead to Wednesday night's opener between the Giants and Cardinals began the same way: What about Barry?

``Our goal here is not to put on an exhibition of how many times can you throw the ball down the middle and how many home runs he can hit, or how many times we can walk him and not compete,'' La Russa said.

``We're not going to fall in the trap of ignoring all the Giants' assets,'' he said. ``I prefer to think the Giants beat the Braves. Barry didn't beat the Braves.''

Matt Morris, who's done exceedingly well against Bonds, gets the first chance at the home run champ and newly crowned batting king. Morris will start against Kirk Rueter in Game 1.

``I would like to go after him every time, every at-bat if the situation called for it. But obviously I'm not going to do something to jeopardize the win or the loss,'' he said.

``I'm going to be careful, but I would love to get him out every time up also. So being a competitor, you don't want to get booed in your home park by walking him all the time,'' Morris said. ``But being a winner, you want to do the right thing to win the ballgame also, and not let your ego get in the way of what you're trying to accomplish.''

Bonds is hitting just .154 (2-for-13) with two doubles against Morris. And the Giants slugger has struck out four times while walking only once.

Jason Isringhausen has done even better. Bonds is 0-for-11 with three strikeouts and three walks against the Cardinals closer.

Isringhausen, along with most every other baseball fan, was well aware that Bonds struggled in past playoffs before this year. He had hit a paltry .196 with one homer and six RBIs in 97 at-bats as Bonds' teams lost all five times.

``It didn't look like he had any problems in that series,'' said Isringhausen, who watched the Giants' clincher. ``I think he's 10 times better as a hitter than he was with the Pirates back then.''

More than anything, Bonds has become amazingly patient at the plate, as evidenced by his record 198 walks this season.

Morris noted that most of the pitches that Bonds hit out of the park were up in the strike zone.

``Those are mistakes you can't make to anybody in the playoffs, never mind Barry Bonds,'' he said. ``I'm going to try to move the ball around to all sides of the plate, change his eye levels, changes his views, change the speeds on him, see what kind of adjustments he's making and then go from there.''

``You don't want to throw him anything too close to the plate where he can do some damage. It seemed like every pitch he's getting that's around the plate he's putting it into the seats,'' he said.

Of course, not every Cardinals pitcher offered such a detailed analysis.

``I've been asked 10 times about Barry Bonds,'' said Chuck Finley, who will start Game 3. ``He's not my problem.''