Bonds’ average goes up even as he doesn’t play

DENVER – Maybe things have turned around for Barry Bonds.

San Francisco’s slugger wasn’t in the starting lineup for Sunday afternoon’s game at Colorado, but his batting average rose nevertheless.

Official scorer Dave Einspahr reviewed Bonds’ fourth at-bat from Saturday night, when pitcher Aaron Cook mishandled his comebacker and was charged with an error. Einspahr changed it to a single, raising Bonds’ batting average from .206 to .235 – although it dipped to .228 when he struck out as a pinch-hitter in the ninth.

“It’s kind of a do-or-die situation where, if he doesn’t get it cleanly, it’s not an easy play,” Einspahr told the Associated Press on Sunday after the Giants had requested a review.

The ball, which was hit to the right of the mound, bounced off Cook’s glove and dribbled behind the plate and Bonds chugged down to first.

Afterward, Bonds said he’d never seen a play like that in his 21 years in the majors. Cook also was charged with an error on a similar comebacker an inning earlier.

“We work on that every day in spring training and we get balls hit a lot harder than those two were,” Cook said. “The only way I can explain it is that maybe I took my eye off it at the last second, because those plays should be made 100 percent of the time.”