It may have been Houston's ugliest baseball moment since the final scenes in "The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training."

	Barry Bonds was walked 10 times and hit by two pitches between his 69th and 70th homers.

With Barry Bonds still one home run short of Mark McGwire's home run record and time beginning to run out on his season, the Astros intentionally walked him in the sixth inning Thursday night even though Houston trailed by seven runs at the time.

That's right. With one out, Rich Aurilia on second base and Houston trailing 8-1, Astros manager Larry Dierker had reliever Ricky Stone intentionally walk Bonds, the third four-pitch walk of the game to Barry.

"I've been around a long time and I've never seen a slugger walked intentionally with an 8-1 lead," Giants veteran outfielder Eric Davis griped.

Asked whether it made him angry, Davis replied, "It speaks for itself. That's not baseball."

No, it wasn't. And Houston manager Larry Dierker, who was so angry at his team's sixth consecutive loss that he declined to speak with reporters, would be roasted on talk radio across the country Friday had rookie reliever Wilfredo Rodriguez not fed Barry a fastball in the ninth that the slugger hit to Oklahoma to tie McGwire's record.

From 69 to 70

After hitting home run No. 69 on Saturday off San Diego's Chuck McElroy, Barry Bonds didn't see many pitches to swing at. Check his plate appearances: Saturday No. 1: Hit a dribbler in front of plate on first pitch. Sunday No. 2: Walked on four straight pitches. No. 3: Grounded to shortstop on first pitch. No. 4: Walked on four straight pitches. No. 5: Ball one, hit by pitch. Tuesday No. 6: strike, hit by pitch. No. 7: Ball, ball, strike, ball, ball four. No. 8: Ball, single up the middle. No. 9: Intentional walk. No. 10: Ball, ball, foul, groundout to first. Wednesday No. 11: Ball, strike, ball, foul, strike three swinging. No. 12: Walked on four pitches. No. 13: Walked on four pitches. No. 14: Ball, ball, then intentionally walked. No. 15: Singles on first pitch. Thursday: No. 16: Walked on four pitches. No. 17: Foul, strike, foul, ball, ball, groundout to second. No. 18: Walked on four pitches. No. 19: Intentionally walked. Total: 19 plate appearances, 14 strikes, 50 balls.

Now, I'm a proponent of pitching around a hitter as dangerous as Bonds when you desperately need to win to stay in a pennant race. I even wrote a column a couple days ago about how I wouldn't give Barry anything to hit in that situation either. That's just good baseball. And the Astros certainly need a victory. They've gone from a 5 1/2 game lead last week to a one-game deficit. They could have clinched the wild-card spot with a victory over the Giants but now their wild-card lead over San Francisco is down to two games with a three-game series in St. Louis.

So don't get me wrong. There is a time and a place (in fact, many times and many places) not to feed Bonds a pitch over the heart of the plate.

But an intentional walk when trailing 8-1 in the sixth inning? Give me a break.

"They were trying to win the ballgame," Giants manager Dusty Baker said. "I might have done the same thing."

Well, that was very diplomatic to say in victory but Davis wasn't buying into it. "They weren't even competing out there," Davis said, referring to the nine times the Astros walked Bonds in the series, including seven times on four pitches. "If you're not competing, it's not a pennant race."

"There certainly was a lot of talk on the bench about it," first baseman J.T. Snow said. "There's a certain integrity to playing the game and I think when a team is up 8-1, that's not the right way to do it. It wound up working out for them but I think to uphold the integrity of the game, you don't do that."

It worked out because Jeff Kent, who had three hits following walks to Bonds in Wednesday's game and two hits -- including a two-run homer -- following walks to him Thursday, grounded into a double play this time. What makes all this particularly interesting is that the Giants face their longtime rivals, the Dodgers, in the final three games of the season with Bonds still needing a home run to break the record and San Francisco two games out of first place and the wild card spot.

Dodgers manager Jim Tracy was Felipe Alou's bench coach in 1998 when the Expos served up five home runs to McGwire in the final weekend in 1998. He said last week pitching to or around Bonds would depend on the pennant situation. The Dodgers aren't in the postseason hunt anymore but that doesn't mean they don't have anything on the line.

The Dodgers still remember the Giants eliminating them from the postseason on Joe Morgan's home run in the final game of the 1982 season. They still remember their playoff loss to the Giants in 1962. And of course, they still remember Bobby Thomson's home run. How could they not? They've been reminded about it for the past 50 years, including this month when the Giants actually asked them to wear 1951 replica uniforms to commemorate the game.

And after celebrating the worst loss in your history, would you also like to re-enact getting dumped on prom night?

The Dodgers would love nothing more than to prevent the Giants from reaching the postseason and keep Bonds from the record at the same time.

"I don't know what will happen," Snow said. "I'm sure they'll do everything to beat us and keep us out of the playoffs. I'm sure if there's a situation where Barry has a chance to hurt them, they'll probably walk him. And if the game is not on the line, we'll see what happens."

Jim Caple is a senior writer for ESPN.com.