Remembering Barry Bonds against the Padres

You have already made it through one Giants/Padres series this year. Congratulations. But after this series, the Giants …

• host the Padres once in June
• go to San Diego once in July
• go to San Diego once in September
• finish the season against the Padres at AT&T

That's … reasonable. I looked over the schedule six times to make sure there wasn't a storth of Augtember series that wasn't visible to muggle eyes yet. After this series, there are only four more Padres series to go. That's amazing. And reasonable.

Still doesn't mean that I want to write a series preview for the Padres a week after the last one! Luckily, I'm in a Play Index mood lately, so I can just dick around on Baseball Reference for an hour instead of write a proper series preview. That "luckily" was for me, not for you. But without the Play Index tomfoolery, would you get trivia questions like this?

Which Giant has the highest career OPS if you don't set a minimum for plate appearances?

There are 19 players ahead of Barry Bonds, in case you were wondering. Terrell Lowery had a higher career OPS with the Giants than Bonds did, but now we're off track. The answer to the trivia question is at the bottom of this post.

But Bonds has been on my mind today, mostly because I looked at the players who killed specific teams, and I was somewhat shocked that Bonds didn't show up as the top Padres killer. That honor went to Mark McGwire, who had a 1.461 OPS against the Padres, which crushed Bonds's second-place 1.153 mark.

Of course, McGwire had 136 plate appearances against the Padres in his career. Bonds had 1,148. Which is amazing. Bonds had over a season-and-a-half's worth of plate appearances against the Padres over his career. That is just a ton of harassment. I remember listening to a Giants/Padres game on the radio with a Padres fan back in '97 or '98, and seeing the resignation on his face when Bonds came up in a key spot. It was kind of deflating; I felt bad for the guy. Isn't this all supposed to be fun? Why do you follow baseball if it makes you feel like this? And then Bonds hit a homer. My friend didn't even react.

It was hilarious. And here we are, complaining about Paul Goldschmidt like a bunch of spoiled brats.

So in the spirit of a) being annoying and b) looking for pre-Padres good-luck charms, here is the list of every home run Bonds hit against the Padres as a member of the Giants:

No, no. Keep trying, Jason Middlebrook. That's the only way you'll learn.

There's no great reason for this list. It's just swell, is all. A really swell list. Linebrink to Hensley, y'all. I think the reason I love this list is that the top-half is filled with the Padres who were around when I first started becoming obsessed with baseball. The walk-off against Hoffman in '95 just might be the reason you're reading this right now. If I wasn't at that game, I'm not sure if I ever turn from a fan into a superfan.

So many good names. Andy Ashby used to be a thing. I've linked to the four videos I could find, too. MLB.com's getting better, but they still have a ways to go.

The Giants have made memories against the Padres in the post-Bonds era, of course, so it's not like we're forced to look back at Bonds wistfully because that's the only way to think happy thoughts about the Padres. No, not at all. But it's fun to remember just how often Bonds tormented the Padres.

At least, it's more fun than another series preview that expects you to care about Clayton Richard.

Final note: You know, I'll bet if Clay Hensley went by Clayton Hensley, he'd still be on the Padres today.

Trivia answer from above: Scott Munter. 1-for-1 with a double in his career with the Giants, good for a 3.000 OPS.