When I was a die-hard USF basketball fan as a kid, I was introduced to the concept of faking an injury to stave off embarrassment when seldom-used forward Erik Gilberg went up for a garbage-time dunk, came up woefully short, slammed the ball into the front of the rim, fell on his rear, then promptly grabbed at his ankle.

That scene popped back into my head Friday night when Ryan Howard went down in a heap after bouncing out to end Chris Carpenter's masterpiece.

Now we know that Howard wasn't pulling a Gilberg. He has a torn Achilles' tendon, and that's among the more devastating sports injuries.

It's also a potentially fantastic solution to what, at present, is a bit of a messy problem for the Giants.

Howard's injury is going to take a minimum of six months to heal, and that's an optimistic view. Eight months is more realistic, and depending on Howard's work ethic and the competency of his trainers and docs, it could be 10 months to a year.

Thus, they're going to need a first baseman. A good one. Someone who represents a threat in the middle of the lineup. Someone with a little clubhouse juice. Someone with a sense of accomplishment.

Know anyone like that who might be available?

Operator: Hello, you've reached the Philadelphia Phillies. How may I direct your call?

Brian Sabean: Ruben Amaro Jr., please. Brian Sabean calling.

Operator: Hold, please.

Elton John's "Philadelphia Freedom" plays while Sabean sits on hold.

Amaro: Sabey Sabes! What's happening?

Sabean: Well, tell you what. I was watching your game the other night. Bummer about Ryan, huh?

Amaro: Yeah. Slightly. I don't know what we're gonna do.

Sabean: I have an idea.

Amaro: I thought you might. Belt or Pill?

Sabean: Pfffhhhhhfffft! Sorry. You owe me a cup of coffee, Ruben. Just spit mine out. No, I mean Huff.

Amaro: Aubrey Huff?

Sabean: No. Michael Huff, the Raiders' DB. Yes, Aubrey Huff.

Amaro: Dude makes $11 milliion and stunk on ice this year. And you yourself said he was an offseason slacker!

Sabean: Right. But you have as much money as God, Aubrey is great every other year, and you know how motivated veterans are in their walk years. It's perfect!

Amaro: Hmmmm. Good points, all. But I need more.

Sabean: That's all I've got, Ruben. He'd be a nice band-aid for you, is all I'm saying. And hey, he's got this Rally Thong thing that matches your guys' color scheme!

Amaro: Sold. What do you want for him?

Sabean: Just get me that coffee you owe me at the Winter Meetings, OK? And take the thong. Please.



(csnbayarea.com)

Giants manager Bruce Bochy said Thursday that Aubrey Huff not do enough to get in shape for the 2011 season.

And it showed on the field, as Huff batted just .246/.306/.370 with 12 homers and a .676 OPS over 579 plate appearances. The Giants expect him to work harder this winter and have told him to be prepared to play the outfield. "Aubrey knows it’s going to be different," said Bochy. "That can’t happen again or you’ve got to make changes." Huff would likely be one of the worst defensive outfielders in baseball, but it could finally give Brandon Belt a chance to play everyday.


(rotoworld.com)

Giants manager Bruce Bochy said he will not give Aubrey Huff any more starts the rest of the way.

Bochy wants to get a longer look at Brandon Belt and Brett Pill. Huff, who has already been receiving regular days off of late, has been a huge disappointment after signing a two-year extension last offseason, batting just .245/.305/.370 with 12 homers and 59 RBI over 519 at-bats.


(rotoworld.com)

The end of this season for the Giants hasn't been fun. But it's at least been about clearing up the issues that have plagued the Giants this year and, perhaps admitting some mistakes.

If you're not clear what I mean: Brian Sabean finally ponied up and dumped Miguel Tejada and Aaron Rowand.

Another mistake that's haunted the Giants this season? Aubrey Huff. Though Huff was indispensable -- from both a statistical, leadership and, um, fashion perspective -- down the stretch in 2010, there was really no reason to reward him with a monster contract.

The Giants did that anyway, for some reason. And Huff has played about as poorly as he possibly could given the deal he received. Don't worry, though. He knows he's helping sink this team.

"If I have anything close to the season I had last year, we probably wouldn't be sitting in this spot," said Huff said earlier in the week, per Andrew Baggarly of the San Jose Mercury-News."So I take a lot of blame for that. But at the same time, it's baseball, man. Guys have bad years. We've had injuries and bad breaks.

"Certainly I could've played better. I just didn't."

 So what to make of Huff's future with Brandon "Yo-Yo Giraffe" Belt seemingly prepared to start with the big-league club (again) in 2012? Well, ESPN's Buster Olney doesn't expect any mea culpas from Sabean on this one.

"The guess here is that San Francisco will not go into next year committed to playing Huff every day, as it did in 2011, while waiting for him to start producing," Olney writes Friday. "Huff is hitting .243 with a .301 on-base percentage with 12 homers and 55 RBIs in 544 at-bats in the first year of a two-year, $22 million deal."

"$11 million for 12 home runs" is always painful reading material. I'm not even sure why I wrote it again.

So it's good news if we don't have to hear it once again in 2012, as Olney suggests.

And while he swatted 26 home runs in 2010 and knocked a shocking 32 out of the park as recently as 2008, this is prime time for a skills decline, as we saw in 2011.

The odds of him justifying an $11 million deal are pretty low, even barring a big bounceback. Unfortunately, he's already locked into that deal, so there's not a whole lot anyone can do to change it, other than hope that Sabean doesn't bank on him being the third-best batter on the roster in 2012.

Again.



(nbcbayarea.com)

Aubrey Huff was in the middle of an interview, talking about his disappointing, exasperating 2011 season, when a small gift bag arrived from a fan.

"Ohhh no," said Huff, rummaging through the tissue paper. "Pretty sure I know what this is."

He pulled out the lime-green thong underwear and flipped it into an empty, adjacent locker.

"Oh jeez," he said. "Another one."

It's been tough enough for Huff to deal with a summer-long litany of lunging strikeouts and weak pop-ups with runners on base. The dozens of skimpy gifts from well-intentioned fans only serve as another reminder:

This is not last year. He is not the same hitter. And it's not as simple as snapping on a new incarnation of the Rally Thong, which worked so magically last September and throughout the playoffs.

"It's tough, man," said Huff, whose .673 OPS ranks dead last among all 20 major league first basemen with at least 450 plate appearances. "I was counting on coming in and having a good year like last year. They were counting on me. And it just ... hasn't happened."

Huff hit 26 home runs last year, drew almost as many walks (83) as strikeouts (91) and finished seventh in the N.L. MVP balloting, all of which earned him a two-year, $22 million contract.

But after a monster spring, he has 12 home runs this season -- a quarter of which he hit in one muggy evening in St. Louis. His on-base percentage has plummeted from .385 to .301. And with rookie hopefuls Brandon Belt and Brett Pill on the roster, the fans who once cheered Huff like a rock star, the thong clenched between his teeth at the victory parade, now are voting him to the bench with their boos.

Huff, 34, does not make excuses, nor does he skirt blame for contributing to the worst offense in the major leagues, which is likely to doom the Giants' brilliant pitchers from defending their World Series title.

"If I have anything close to the season I had last year, we probably wouldn't be sitting in this spot," said Huff, before the Giants fell seven games behind first-place Arizona with a loss Wednesday in San Diego. "So I take a lot of blame for that. But at the same time, it's baseball, man. Guys have bad years. We've had injuries and bad breaks. Certainly I could've played better. I just didn't."

Failure and acceptance. They can come dangerously easy when you've played a decade for second-division teams, as Huff did before joining the Giants last year. He also has an acknowledged history of following a Silver Slugger season with a stinker.

The difference this time: He isn't stinking it up for a team that expected to lose 90 games.

"We've talked about it," said Giants outfielder Pat Burrell, Huff's close friend going back to college. "We talk about it all the time. Let's be honest. I'm not trying to say anything bad about those other teams, but it's different here. There's a lot more expected, and with that comes pressure. That's difficult to deal with where he's slumping."

Last season, Burrell and Huff would sock each other in the chest to celebrate late-inning heroics. This year, Burrell is pulling no punches while trying to motivate Huff.

"The truth is, we didn't sign back with the Giants because we're friends," said Burrell, who is likely at the end of his career because of a chronic foot injury. "We signed up to win. Just because we're friends doesn't mean I won't give him my opinion. That's not easy, but you know, neither is this game.

"I've told him, 'You can't change yesterday. What you can do is take a different attitude the rest of the way.' "

That's what Giants manager Bruce Bochy hopes to see. Although Huff is signed for next season, the Giants will be desperate to acquire a big bat -- and the two biggest free agents (Prince Fielder and Albert Pujols) play first base.

Even if the Giants don't add another first baseman, they might have a logjam at the position. For all Buster Posey's insistence that he will be the starting catcher on opening day, there is a strong undercurrent in the front office for moving him to first base -- or maybe even third base, with Pablo Sandoval grabbing a first baseman's mitt.

So N.L. West standings aside, these final three weeks loom large for Huff.

"Nobody's owed a job no matter how much money they make," Huff said. "I'll have to come to spring training to prove something, sure."

Said Bochy: "If anything, it'll be a strong message he could send by finishing up strong."

Huff pledged to do his best down the stretch, but he's in too deep to expect a turnaround at this late hour. He isn't wearing the Rally Thong this year. But he's never felt so bare.

"I'm so bad I've just gotta go into the offseason and try and figure something out mechanically," he said. "There's got to be something mechanically, I just can't figure it out.

"You get so down and out it just feels like you're fighting yourself, tweaking things. Hitting is a feel and a comfort thing, and it's just never been there."

(mercurynews.com)

Aubrey Huff returned to action on Wednesday as a pinch-hitter, smacking a leadoff single in the eighth inning of a 3-1 loss.

But it was all for naught, as the pinch-runner for whom we was lifted was caught stealing moments later. Huff has been dealing with a sore back. With replacement Brett Pill off to a rocket start, it will be interesting to see whether manager Bruce Bochy stays with the hot bat.


(rotoworld.com)

Giants 1B/OF Aubrey Huff left Monday's series opener against the Padres due to a sore back. He was replaced on the bases by Darren Ford after taking a walk in the fifth inning and went 0 for 2 in the contest. Huff has gone 5 for 23 (.217) over his last seven games with one RBI and five strikeouts.



(fantasysp.com)

San Francisco Giants 1B Aubrey Huff was not in the starting lineup Friday, Aug. 26, against the Houston Astros, because he has been slumping recently. IF Mark DeRosa started in his place and Huff went 0-for-1 after entering the game on a double switch. It is uncertain if he will remain out of the lineup for several games. Huff is batting .083 (1-for-12) on the team's current homestand.


(kffl.com)

In Game No. 117 of the Giants' season Tuesday night, Aubrey Huff may have sent a significant signal that he is ready to come out of his long hitting hibernation.

Huff, the Giants' offensive leader last season with 26 homers and 86 RBIs, finally flashed some of his 2010 form at AT&T Park with three hits, including a run-scoring double and a solo homer, to lead the Giants past the Pittsburgh Pirates 6-0.

"I'm starting to get my timing a little bit better now," said Huff, whose big night raised his average to .249, the highest it has been since April 19. "Hopefully, we'll run off these next two months, and nobody will remember the first four."

Huff wasn't the only hero on a night when the Giants needed a victory to remain in first place in the N.L. West. Madison Bumgarner tossed seven shutout innings and struck out 10, and light-hitting catcher Chris Stewart slammed his first career homer in his 140th major league at-bat, dating to 2006.

But the breakout performance of the Giants' veteran first baseman was surely the most welcome sight for manager Bruce Bochy, who has been exceedingly patient in waiting for Huff to find his stroke.

With Carlos Beltran missing a second straight game because of a hand injury, it couldn't have come at a better time.

"We have a lot of baseball left, and even if you're still having your struggles this late in the season, you can't give up," said Bochy. "You have to keep grinding, keep working,and he's doing that."

Except for his three-homer game in St. Louis on June 2, Huff has failed to serve as much of a power-hitting run producer. Even though he had shown signs of life by hitting .327 over his previous 17 games, he had just one homer and three RBIs during that span. Worse yet, he had just three hits in 21 previous at-bats with runners in scoring position coming into Tuesday's game and was hitting just .233 for the year in such situations.

That changed in the fourth inning of a scoreless game when, one out after Jeff Keppinger's double to center to lead off the inning, Huff slammed an opposite-field double to left-center that brought home the Giants' first run.

Huff struck again in the sixth, when he whacked a 1-1 pitch from Pittsburgh starter James McDonald (7-6) into the right-field arcade. It was his 11th homer, but just his third at AT&T Park this year.

So what has Huff figured out of late?

"Just laying off bad pitches, getting myself in hitter's counts and giving myself a chance," he said. "In the struggles I've had, especially when we're not scoring any runs at all and our pitchers are going out there every night giving everything you got, you're going up there and just trying to do too much."

In between Huff's RBI hits was Stewart's personal milestone blast, a well-struck missile to left field leading off the fifth. It touched off a big party in the dugout because most of the players knew how long the catcher had waited to get his first homer.

"Luckily I lifted weights this morning where that extra curl may have given me just enough to get it out," Stewart said. "I'd expect myself to be the happiest guy, but my teammates proved me wrong. There was a lot of excitement going, so it was fun to get back to the dugout and celebrate with everybody."

Those three runs of support were plenty for Bumgarner (7-11), who limited the Pirates to four hits and a walk over his seven innings. Bumgarner now has a 13-inning scoreless streaking from his past two starts.

Bochy said Bumgarner just keeps getting better as the season progresses.

"He's just getting smarter, and he'll continue to get wiser out there and pitch with more savvy," the manager said. "The thing about Madison is he's aggressive, and he's starting to use all four quadrants of the strike zone."


(insidebayarea.com)

Who can we get?" was a common question among Giants fans before Carlos Beltran was acquired, and it kept being asked after the trade deadline as the team piled up losses - as if some magical move could be made to breathe air into an unresponsive offense.

One of the common answers was "the 2010 Aubrey Huff," and that's exactly who emerged Tuesday night in a 6-0 victory over the Pirates - the Giants' third win in 12 games, which maintained their National League West lead over Arizona by a half game.

Huff, a .233 hitter with runners in scoring position, smoked an RBI double to left-center to score Jeff Keppinger from second base and also homered, but he wasn't the only man who filled the Giants' "haven't done it in a while" file.

Madison Bumgarner enjoyed his first scoreless outing since Game 4 of the World Series, striking out 10 batters in seven innings, and Chris Stewart hit his first home run since ... well, his first home run, period. At least in the big leagues, covering 140 at-bats.

Huff contributed so much more in the championship season than he has the year after. The team's 2010 leader in homers, RBIs and clubhouse pranks, Huff entered Tuesday's game hitting .244 with 10 homers and 49 RBIs, prompting some fans to wish for a Brandon Belt sighting. At the same time last year, Huff was at .304, 20 and 67.

He had hit safely in seven of eight games, but just one of the hits went for extra bases.

"The singles, last year I was lifting for doubles and homers," he said. "My swing has been so bad for so long. At least they're hits. Now I'm starting to get my timing a little better. Hopefully, we'll run off these next two months and nobody will remember the first four."

According to manager Bruce Bochy, Huff pressed early in the season. "Buster (Posey) and Freddy Sanchez went down, and he put too much on himself to carry this club," Bochy said. "You can't do that. I don't care how good you are. Hopefully, this'll get him to keep the line moving."
With Beltran shelved with a wrist injury a second straight night, Huff batted cleanup and had three hits, including an eighth-inning single that set up a three-run rally. A rare dose of situational hitting took place, with Huff moving Pablo Sandoval to third and Sandoval scoring on Nate Schierholtz's fielder's choice grounder to the right side.

Yes, the Stewart and Huff homers were solo shots (off James McDonald), but that was OK on this night. The Giants' last 18 homers have come with nobody on base - one shy of the major-league record set by the 1914 Phillies.

"I woke up this morning and did an extra curl," said Stewart, proudly displaying the home run ball at his locker, having given a signed bat to the fan who retrieved it. "I know I got all of it. If it didn't get out, I was going to start bunting every at-bat."

Stewart's homer made the score 2-0, and Huff's made it 3-0, giving Bumgarner and reliever Sergio Romo - whose streak of batters retired ended at 31 on Andrew McCutchen's eighth-inning double - some breathing room.

The game ended when Santiago Casilla struck out McCutchen with the bases loaded, clinching the Giants' most one-sided shutout victory since they beat the Dodgers 10-0 in L.A. for their first win of the season.


(sfgate.com)

CINCINNATI — The San Francisco Giants were concerned about how last year’s playoff workload would affect their splendid pitching staff this season.

Their arms haven’t lagged yet. But playing until Nov. 1 appears to be having an impact on some of their veteran position players — especially Aubrey Huff, whose struggles have been well-documented.

Bruce Bochy had planned to rest Huff in one of two games this weekend. But after Friday night’s 13-inning loss, in which Huff looked wiped out after scoring from first base, Bochy decided to rest the veteran for the remainder of the series in favor of rookie Brandon Belt.

Huff’s stiff back has been a recurring problem. He also has looked a step slower in the field and on the bases, and there’s plenty of chatter that he didn’t arrive in camp in the same shape he did the previous year.

Then again, Huff had never played in the postseason before last year. He made it through October on adrenaline alone. It made for a tricky offseason; his body needed rest and recovery, yet he also had less time to prepare for 2011.

"Oh, we talked about it," Bochy said. "Players who haven’t had to do it, and we have a few guys, there’s a lot they went through last year. Playing till Nov. 1 and having a short offseason, then having to get back into it — it does take a toll.

"It’s something that will test your mettle both on the mental and physical side."

As for the pitchers, Bochy said he was "thrilled to see how they’re throwing to this point in the season. We said we’d keep an eye on them, and they all seem to be doing well."


(bostonherald.com)

Giants manager Bruce Bochy said that Brandon Belt was called up because Aubrey Huff is dealing with tightness in his lower back.

Bochy said he wants to give Huff a few days off in hopes that he can put the back injury behind him. It sounds like it could be a short stay for Belt, though if he hits, he could certainly stay around. Hitting is something Huff hasn't done much of this season, as he's batting just .232/.286/.359 for the year.


(rotoworld.com)

Padres closer Heath Bell completed his sprint from the bullpen – no sliding this time – and his arm was dangling as usual.

The Giants were three outs away from losing 1-0, dooming Madison Bumgarner to the title of “best 10-loss pitcher in the majors” and beginning the unofficial second half right where they left off, with Bruce Bochy’s dentist telling him to cut back on the gnashing.

Then Aubrey Huff hit a home run. It was his first since his three-homer game in St. Louis on May 2, a span of 125 powerless at-bats, and that wasn’t even the most amazing part. Far from it.

It was the first homer Bell had allowed all season. He only allowed one in 2010 – and that came way back on April 19, when Juan Uribe took him deep. So we’re looking at 102 innings in 99 appearances scattered over 15 months since Bell had occasion to call for a new baseball as someone trotted around the bases. Both times, it was a Giant. How about that?

Huff didn’t hit a 3-1 cookie fastball, either. It was an 0-2 breaking pitch. He fouled off a pair with two strikes before Bell threw him a curve or slow slider.

All these descriptions are in the game story. But because the game didn’t end until the 12th inning, Huff’s comments are not. So I’ll include them here.

“I was looking heater,” Huff said. “You have to, 0-2. I’m sure he wanted to bounce it but he left it up and I was just hoping it’d stay fair. It’s been one of those years, you know, nothing’s been falling. I knew I got it, but I was thinking, `Please, please, stay fair.’”

Huff gave and received some mighty firm high fives as he returned to the dugout.

“Listen, when you’re younger, you’re playing on losing teams,” he said. “You’re playing for yourself. I’d been so crappy in the first half and I was coming off one of my better years. I just wanted so badly to go out and do the same thing I did last year. The break really helped me unwind and take the step back.”

What did he do?

“I did nothing,” he said. “I didn’t think about baseball. Not a damn thing.”

Huff said he felt good in his other at-bats, too. He hit a broken-bat flare to right field, where Chris Denorfia made a tumbling grab. Yet Huff knows you can’t pronounce yourself fixed after one game. There was that three-homer explosion in St. Louis, remember? That turned out to be one small RBI binge followed by another month-long fast.

“It’s one game,” Huff said. “There’s no doubt that this offense, if I’m doing what I’m supposed to do, it’ll get rolling a little bit better. I‘ve got to get going for us to get where we want to go.”

Huff’s break started a day early when Bruce Bochy sat him last Sunday. The manager said he saw better at-bats from Huff in the No.5 spot Thursday.

“I really think it’s going to be important for him to wash off the first half and just have good at-bats,” Bochy said. “That (home run) was a great at-bat. He’s just trying to hit a ball hard there with two strikes and he ends up hitting the home run that saves us.”

No jazz hands, though. That’s a Uribe special.

“I heard that,” said Huff, told that he and Uribe own the only homers off Bell in two seasons. “He’s so good – one of the best in the game. But he’s not immune to making a mistake. I’m sure he wants that one back, but hey, I don’t feel bad for him.”


(mercurynews.com)

SAN FRANCISCO -- Manager Bruce Bochy rested Aubrey Huff on Sunday, theoretically intending to lengthen the All-Star break for the first baseman who has continued to struggle offensively.

Huff, who entered the game batting .236, has not homered since his three-homer binge on June 2 at St. Louis. His drought has spanned 34 games and 125 at-bats.

Bochy hoped that the Giants' first-place status in the National League West will relax Huff, so that "he doesn't feel like he's let anybody down."



(mlb.com)

Aubrey Huff has continued his antics in San Francisco, where he has been a hit in the Giants clubhouse. His magical thong helped them make the playoffs last year and he had some big hits on their run to the title. He also enjoys crying after wins and showing off his moves from the dance club, which he did for Showtime's “THE FRANCHISE: A Season with the San Francisco Giants,” which will be like “Hard Knocks” for baseball.

I know Huff, who played for the Orioles from 2007 to 2009, thinks the Baltimore nightlife scene is horse manure -- well, he put it a slightly different way -- but it looks he got his moves at Power Plant Live or in Federal Hill.

It was the highlight that sparked a big question on Friday night. Why was San Francisco Giants first baseman Aubrey Huff(notes) crying in the team's postgame handshake line? Especially since they had just defeated the Detroit Tigers, 4-3?

Since most of us saw the clip without any context (or without any sound in restaurants and bars), there were a lot of questions to be asked. Was he upset over the death of the clubhouse water cooler after Brian Wilson(notes) took a bat to it after a blown save? Was he remembering the .567 OPS he posted for the Tigers during an ill-fated playoff push in 2009? Or just simply missing his retired red rally thong?

Given Huff's reputation as a prankster, I thought he was probably just hamming it up and joking for the entertainment of his teammates. It's a theory supported by someone close to the team, San Jose Mercury News reporter Andrew Baggarly.

From the Mercury News:

"Several folks have asked me why Aubrey Huff appeared to be wiping away tears in the handshake line. Not sure, but Huff has this mock crying performance thing that he does often, usually when he's talking about his batting average. He'll start laughing and end up crying. He's a showman."

That's not to say Huff doesn't have a sentimental side. The Stew was there last November when he cried and cried after winning the World Series. But given that Friday's game was just another during the grind of a season it's probably safe to say he was just messing around.

UPDATE: Huff confirms to Baggarly that he was indeed just joking around.

Huff said he was just clowning around, as he usually does. "I can't take this stress! That kind of thing," he said.


(yahoosports.com)

Barry Bonds hated being a designated hitter. Pat Burrell was terrible at it. Aubrey Huff loves it.

"DHing is as good as an off day, to be honest," Huff said. "The times you get tired are when you're standing around on the field. That's when you get worn down."

The Giants will need a DH for the three games in Oakland this weekend and three in Detroit at the end of the next road trip.

A week ago, manager Bruce Bochy said Huff would be a prime candidate to DH because of how many games he has played. He has started 66 of the Giants' 69 games.

On Thursday, though, Bochy said Huff likely will DH only once this weekend, partly because the Giants face three righties and have a day off Monday.

"I certainly wouldn't object to it," said Huff, who has a career average of .278 with on-base and slugging averages of .335 and .482, including 69 of his 237 career home runs, as a designated hitter.

Huff said the key to his success was not dwelling on his hitting between at-bats. He has seen DHs take hacks in the cage, run in the tunnel, watch video and generally drive themselves nuts during the downtime.

"I just watch the game and root for my team," he said. "If you're the DH, you've got to let it go."


(sfgate.com)

Aubrey Huff went 3-for-4 with two RBI as the Giants topped the Reds 4-2 on Sunday night.

Huff doubled in the Giants' first run in the fourth and singled in their last in the seventh. Hopefully this marks the end of his latest slump. He had been hitting .176 in 34 at-bats since his three-homer game on June 2.


(rotoworld.com)

Finally, after a 12-7 victory ended a stretch of 35 road games in the first 56 contests, the Giants flew back to the Bay Area on Thursday to start their first long stretch of home games. Twenty-four players tripped over one another to get to the airport, while Aubrey Huff chained himself to the Cardinals' mascot, Fredbird.

"We're going to make sure Aubrey gets on the plane," manager Bruce Bochy joked. And why would Huff want to leave the hot, humid heaven where his 2011 season was reborn?

When Huff lined a Brian Tallet slider over the right-field fence in the ninth inning, he had his first career three-homer game and six RBIs, which matched his career best. Huff homered four times in the Giants' first 54 games before hitting four in his final six at-bats of a series the Giants won three games to one.

Aubrey was not the only happy Huff.

"My wife, Baubi, it's her birthday," the first baseman said. "She wanted me to hit her a home run. I hit her three. That's brownie points."

The last Giant with three in a game was in the dugout as a coach for this one. J.T. Snow did it in Philadelphia in 2004 and freely admitted two of them were a product of matchbox-sized Citizens Bank Park.

As Huff addressed reporters, Snow walked over and said, "Way to take over the three-homer torch, dude."

When Huff asked if Snow really had a three-homer game, Snow said, "Hard to believe, huh?"

What might be harder to believe is that the Giants are back in first place in the mushy National League West. They stand 31-25 despite being tied with the White Sox for the most road games in the majors at 35.

Teams strive to be .500 away from home. The Giants are 18-17 after a winning trip (4-3) that seemed unlikely when they dropped two of three in Milwaukee.

"This was a big series for us," said Freddy Sanchez, who did something rarer than Huff. Sanchez drove in four runs, including a three-run homer, and was not the Giants' hitting star.

"The way we were able to regroup after Milwaukee and come here and take three of four against a great team like the Cards - that's not easy to do. A lot of guys stepped up. That's what we're going to need from here on out."

Though the season is barely one-third done, the Giants have played 43 percent of their road games. Their immediate reward is 19 of their next 22 games in the Bay Area, with the prospect of a hot first baseman.

Huff said Tuesday he would treat June 1 as his Opening Day and pledged to relax at the plate. As if on cue, he went 5-for-9 with the four homers and an important walk in the first two games of the month.

His three homers Thursday helped the Giants win a game they trailed 3-0 and came against three pitchers. Two of them, right-handers Lance Lynn and Maikel Cleto, were making their major-league debuts. The third came off Tallet, a lefty.

"I saw today in the paper where I had the third-most opportunities to drive in runs in the NL and I was hitting .180-something with runners in scoring position," Huff said. "I hadn't done anything the first two months. It's hard to have fun when you're so crappy. I just let it go."



(sfgate.com)

(06-01) 04:00 PDT St. Louis -- - Aubrey Huff is a shell of the hitter he was last season. With one-third of the season gone, nobody can say "it's early" anymore.

"He's searching," said manager Bruce Bochy, who sat Huff on Tuesday night and said he might keep Huff on the bench another day. "When you get this far into it, guys do look at their numbers and put pressure on themselves.

"With Buster (Posey) not here and Pablo (Sandoval) not here, he wants to be the guy, and it's not happening for him."

The numbers are stark.

After 54 team games last year, Huff was batting .297 with an .862 OPS, seven homers and 25 RBIs. After a soft lineout as a pinch-hitter Tuesday, Huff is hitting .218 with a .611 OPS, four homers and 23 RBIs.

Huff took early batting practice to attempt some mechanical fixes but welcomed the mental break.

Asked if he was overthinking on the field, he said, "Oh, Christ, of course. When you're hot, you don't think about anything. You just go up, see the ball and hit it hard.

"Right now, it feels like whenever I get in there, I'm worrying if my foot is down, where my hands are, what pitch is coming."

Huff's walks are down, too, not because he is seeing better pitches. He is attacking too many bad ones.

"I'm swinging at the rosin bag when I go up there," he said.

Huff said he would view the change of month today as the Opening Day for the rest of the season, putting the first two months behind him.



(sfgate.com)

It's so crazy, it just might work. Why not move Aubrey Huff to third base and recall Brandon Belt to play first?

The idea supposedly came up as a way to ignite the offense, and might gain more traction following a serious reinjury of Mark DeRosa's wrist Wednesday night. The staff has not broached the subject with Huff, which means it cannot happen right away because Huff has not taken any grounders at third.

He has started 344 major-league games at third, most recently in 2008 with Baltimore. He is open to the idea and said he would need about a week of practice.

"The fielding part is easy," Huff said. "It's the throwing. I've got to get used to throwing again, because I don't throw at first base. I went to the outfield last year. I made a lot of throws and my arm was getting a little 'eeeech.' Once I get the arm going, that's the thing."

Huff said he has not been asked by the Giants to be ready to play third base.

Huff has played 361 games at third in the majors and came up through the minors primarily as a third baseman, but he hasn't played there since 2008. He said that, if needed, he could get ready to play there with a week's worth of work, with the throwing being the biggest obstacle. The Giants aren't pleased with their third base play since Pablo Sandoval got hurt, so we can't rule out them giving Huff a shot there at some point.



(rotoworld.com)

The San Francisco Giants have been white hot lately as winners of four in a row, and turned to Jonathan Sanchez this evening to extend it to five. And after a laborious fight by the Sanchize, an Aubrey Huff Homer, and a big night from Miguel Tejada, the Giants took out the Arizona Diamondbacks for the second night in a row by a score of 4-3 at AT&T Park.

Sanchez (W 3-2) seemed to have some issues with the control of his fastball, but managed to claw his way for 6 innings allowing 3 runs on 6 hits with 2 walks and 7 punch outs. Skipper Bruce Bochy pulled out all the stops when it came to the bullpen, using Ramon Ramirez, Javier Lopez, and Sergio Romo in 2 innings of combined perfect work. Brian Wilson continued his terrific homestand by recording his twelfth save of the season despite giving up a leadoff double in the ninth.

Aside from Huff’s homer in the fifth, his fourth or the year, the Giants got some great hitting from the slumping Miguel Tejada. Miggy was 3-4 including a double and an RBI, boosting his average up to .213 for the year now. Andres Torres had himself a great night as well, going 2-3 with an RBI ground rule double in the sixth. All of the starting positional players for the G-Men got a hit except for Aaron Rowand and Mike Fontenot, but Rowand still scored a run on a wild pitch by Armando Galarraga in the fourth.



(bayarea.sbnation.com)

San Francisco Giants prized rookie first baseman Brandon Belt might not be a first baseman come this weekend.

Because of shoddy defense in the outfield corners and with Cody Ross on the disabled list, Giants manager Bruce Bochy could flip-flop Belt and right fielder Aubrey Huff within the next couple days, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. With the Giants traveling next week to Colorado and its massive Coors Field outfield, the move seems logical.

Huff has been a statue in right while filling in for Ross. He has played singles into extra-base hits and is becoming a liability with his minus-3 defensive runs saved mark. Ross (strained calf) isn’t expected to be activated from the DL until late next week at the earliest.

Belt took fly balls during batting practice on Monday and Tuesday with Giants outfield coach Roberto Kelly. He was an outfielder before enrolling at Texas, and he played 14 games in the outfield in the minor leagues last season. He has said would be comfortable playing there again.

The consensus has been that Belt would go back to Class AAA Fresno once Ross is activated, which would put Huff back at first base for good. However, Bochy has said that he likes Belt’s approach at the plate despite his .158 average entering Wednesday's game.

It remains to be seen if Bochy’s love of Belt’s at-bats will be enough to keep Belt in the big leagues. It probably makes more sense to send Belt down and let him play every day rather than platoon him with Huff or Ross.



(aol.sportingnews.com)

Giants manager Bruce Bochy said he hasn't been tempted to move Aubrey Huff out of right field.

Top prospect Brandon Belt made the team out of spring training, but the bad news is that Huff was pushed to right field. To say he's looked below average defensively would probably be a bit generous. Things could get very, very interesting in this lineup once Cody Ross is ready to return from a calf injury.



(rotoworld.com)

We've never been a big fan of the designated hitter, but isn't it time for the National League to join the rest of professional baseball and add another hitter to its teams' lineups?

Watching the Giants' Aubrey Huff's adventures in right field against the Dodgers on Sunday – and seeing him diving, sliding, etc., over and over and over, thanks to ESPN – should make Giants fans long for the designated hitter.

Hey, we're not blaming Huff, who came to the Giants from the Tigers and played a key role in last season's championship. He's taking one for the team so can't-miss rookie Brandon Belt can play first base. The Giants figure Belt is the future at first – and Huff is, after all, 34 years old.
When Cody Ross returns from the disabled list to his spot in right field, where does that leave Huff?

The Giants need Huff's bat at the No. 3 spot in the lineup, so he'll likely get the majority of his starts in left, taking at-bats from Pat Burrell, who has hit two home runs in the Giants' first four games.

Good managing – no matter the business – is understanding your people's strengths and weaknesses and putting each in the best possible position to succeed.

To us, that means using Huff as the designated hitter.

Too bad, Giants fans, that the National League hasn't joined modern baseball yet.



(sacbee.com)

We all got a good chuckle when ESPN showed the clip of Pat Burrell(notes) (left) drawing a chalk outline around Dan Runzler(notes) (ground) in Dodger Stadium's right field before Sunday night's game. Pat the Bat's impromptu Banksy moment was designed to poke fun at the pair of exhausting diving catches that Aubrey Huff(notes) (inset) made during the San Francisco Giants' 10-0 win on Saturday.

Make no mistake: It was all in good fun. And in a vacuum, it was one of the funnier stunts we've seen in awhile. Huff was the Giants' first baseman until Cody Ross'(notes) injury pushed him out into the right-field pasture. A chalk outline perfectly portrayed the way he was splayed on the ground after the catches.

But as Andrew Baggarly of the San Jose Mercury News wrote a few hours later, the pregame prank became a lot less amusing after Sunday's game, a 7-5 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers that dropped the defending world champs to 1-3 on the season.

Huff misplayed two balls during the only two innings during which the Dodgers scored. He couldn't grab Marcus Thames'(notes) tiebreaking triple in the four-run seventh (video) nor could he keep Jamey Carroll's(notes) low liner in front of him (video) during the three-run first inning.
"It was slicing, it was over my head, and I didn't know what the hell was happening after that," Huff said about Thames' triple. "I'm comfortable out there, OK? I'm going to make a routine catch."

That may be. But the unpredictable route he takes to get there will cause all Giants fans to hold their breath. They could also cause Brandon Belt's(notes) spot on the roster to be a little less secure once Cody Ross returns and hiding Huff's defensive shortcomings at first base again becomes a better option.

Also, as our pal Rob Iracane points out, Burrell's field graffiti was a little awkward for reasons other than the realities of Huff's defense. With a 42-year-old Giants fan remaining in a coma after being assaulted from behind by two Dodgers fans on opening night, the sight of Burrell's chalk outline — unintended as it might have been — was still a bit sobering.



(sports.yahoo.com)

LOS ANGELES -- Before Sunday's game, Aubrey Huff was given the chalk body outline treatment. He was the victim of some good-natured ribbing from his Giants teammates, who had a laugh as they opted to immortalize his clutch, albeit clumsy, diving catch a day earlier.

But by the end of the seventh inning, Huff was, ingloriously, a trending topic worldwide on Twitter, the laughs having turned against him as the Dodgers' fly balls seemed to be equipped not with heat-seeking but Huff-seeking technology.

Two were particularly perilous -- the Jamey Carroll liner that skipped under his glove and past his diving body for an RBI triple in the first, and the Marcus Thames deep fly in the seventh that turned him around nearly half a dozen times before bouncing in for an RBI triple as he crashed into the wall.

As the defending champs fell, 7-5, to finish off a disappointing season-opening set against the rival Dodgers, Huff looked completely miscast -- a first baseman moonlighting as a right fielder with results that would be comical if they weren't so costly.

Still, a little perspective was in order, and Huff was quick to provide it.

"Guys, those plays aren't easy," he told reporters afterward. "Let's be honest. You guys are going to act like those are routine plays, but they're not. I tried my best. I didn't catch them."

Perhaps Huff will catch on in time. It's important to remember that he saw very little time in the outfield this spring. It wasn't until the eve of the season opener that the Giants decided to keep hot prospect Brandon Belt aboard and install him at first base, prompting Huff's selfless, last-minute switch to the corner outfield.

"He's such a good team player," manager Bruce Bochy said. "He's unselfish. It's not easy to make a move late like that. It's not that easy a position to play if you haven't been out there a lot. He'll get back into a groove out there with more time."

Certainly, the more innings Huff plays in right, the better his reads could be.

That being said, in spite of his tongue-in-cheek claims to be this team's fittest athlete, the 35-year-old Huff isn't expected to wake up tomorrow with a suddenly sharpened skill set. What you saw Sunday night very well might be what you get from Huff, who, it should be noted, logged 57 starts in the corner outfield just last year before settling in at first for the championship run.

And that brings us to the root of the issue, which is the decision the Giants brass will have to make later this month, when October legend Cody Ross makes his return from a calf strain.

In embedding Belt in the lineup, the Giants have accepted a tradeoff, in the form of the defensive downside that is Huff in right and Pat Burrell in left. When Ross returns, something will have to give. Either Burrell becomes a part-timer to accommodate Ross, or Belt heads to Fresno for his first extended look at Triple-A.

Ultimately, Belt should be the one who dictates the direction of the decision. And if his first weekend at this level is any indication, he'll give the Giants plenty to think about.

While the raw data -- a 2-for-13 showing in four games -- might not dazzle the eyes trained to behold batting average, Belt consistently put up solid at-bats all weekend. In addition to cranking his first home run -- a towering shot to straightaway center after working Chad Billingsley to a 2-0 count Friday -- Belt also drew four walks, a testament to his superior plate patience that is all the more impressive when you consider he was in Class A ball just one year ago.

So while it's easy to pile on Huff -- and the national broadcast crew assigned to Sunday's game sure took advantage of the opportunity -- Belt might have the bat that makes it all worthwhile.

Huff, though, has to hold up his end of the bargain. He can't afford too many nights like this one. And neither, come to think of it, can the Giants, for whom this opening set was anything but an artistic success. Huff's bat clearly has tremendous value in the No. 3 spot of the lineup, but the Giants proved this weekend that damaging defense can upend their superior starting pitching.

"I'm coming around," Huff said. "I'm going to make the routine plays."

Little was routine for Huff in this game. When Belt wept upon being informed that he had been added to the active roster, Huff had joked that he ought to be the one crying, given that he'd be stuck in right all year. That line took on added meaning on a night in which what happened to Huff in right bordered on cruel.

The Giants have a few weeks to evaluate Huff's glove and Belt's bat. And when Ross returns, they'll have to decide if the trade they've taken on is worthwhile.



(mlb.com)

It’s difficult to tell if Aubrey Huff is serious or serial. He comes across as two-thirds sarcasm, one-third smart-aleck, exactly the sort of ballplayer needed in any clubhouse and by any journalist.

You want comfort, stay on the other side of the clubhouse. With Huff nearby, complacency doesn’t have a chance. Neither does any form of self-satisfaction. He’s as abrasive as he has to be and as embraceable as he chooses to be.

Huff was the first baseman the Giants probably didn’t want — signing him in January 2010 because they couldn’t get anyone else  — but he became the first baseman the Giants wanted more than anyone else. Things like that happen when you win. Things like that are the reasons you win.

“This is the only place I’ve been happy playing baseball my whole career,” Huff said.

A World Series victory. A contract offer he couldn’t refuse. And fame as the man with the rally thong, which he displayed considerably during the parade in which San Francisco honored the Giants, and in a way, itself.

“That’s funny,” Huff said of his connection to a private undergarment that became very public.

He brought it to get himself and the team out of a slump.

“The whole thing was supposed to stay in-house and it never did,” Huff said. “It leaked out. I’ve had some great years in baseball in my life, and no one ever cared. Now I wear a thong, and that’s how I get my pub.”

Along with getting his hits and RBIs, leading the Giants in almost every offensive category, including batting average (.290) and home runs (26).

“It’s just stupid,” he said. “Whatever works, I guess. People think it’s lucky, then it’s lucky. It served its purpose, and now it’s hung up.”

Huff, 34, lives in Tampa, Fla. He played for the Rays when they were awful, then the Baltimore Orioles — and they’re still awful.

“People down there didn’t care the Giants won the World Series,” he said about Florida. “They’ve got their own baseball team. No, I wasn’t recognized by anybody. In general, the fans in Tampa don’t recognize anybody, which is what I like. We celebrated with some friends.”

Huff and his wife had planned to remain in San Francisco to absorb the post-Series excitement of a town that had waited more than a half-century for a baseball title, but they made a quick exit.

“We were going to stay for a week,” Huff said, “and just enjoy it. We found ourselves leaving in three days. It was that crazy. We couldn’t enjoy it, so we just took off.”

The Huff story was told more than once last season.

How when Aubrey was a boy in Texas his father was shot and killed trying to wrest a gun from an assailant. How Huff’s mother, working at a supermarket while attending Carlton State University, saved enough to buy her son a batting cage.

“While other guys were partying,” he has said, “I was taking swings.”

But not the verbal kind.

Painfully shy, Huff was brought out of his shell by the good-natured insults of University of Miami teammate Pat Burrell, who, as the fates would have it, was picked up by the Giants in the middle of last season and re-signed for 2011.

“The pieces are in place,” Huff said about the coming season. “We got a young, dominant pitching staff, if they stay healthy. I think the offense, all the guys we picked up last year contributed heavily. They’re here the whole year.

“I think the goal is just to get to the playoffs. Then the goals change to winning the World Series. But we’re not going to sneak up on anybody this year.”

Nor will Huff be sneaking out on a golf course this year or any year.

“I play a frustrating sport already,” Huff said about his refusal to join so many other ballplayers at golf. “I’m not going to add another one. And I hate watching golf. A guy’s in the middle of his backswing, somebody yells and everyone goes crazy.

“Concentration? We’re facing a ball coming in 96 [mph] with 50,000 people screaming at you. Come on, that’s real concentration, isn’t it?”

Anyone prepared to disagree?



(sfexaminer.com)

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Right-hander Brandon McCarthy pitched scoreless ball until allowing two runs in the eighth inning on Sunday, and the Oakland A's survived Aubrey Huff's fourth homer in five games to subdue the San Francisco Giants, 6-4, in Cactus League play.

McCarthy (1-0), who recorded the longest outing by an A's starter this spring, walked none and struck out five, while lasting two batters into the eighth inning.

Trailing, 6-0, the Giants roused themselves to score four runs in the eighth, when singles by Brandon Belt and Ryan Rohlinger finished McCarthy. After Freddy Sanchez's bases-loaded groundout generated San Francisco's first run later in the inning, Huff launched a drive off right-hander Fernando Cabrera that cleared the right-field wall. Two of the runs were charged to McCarthy.



(mlb.com)

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Manager Bruce Bochy said Friday that first baseman Aubrey Huff will appear in left field before the Giants break camp in Arizona on March 27.

Huff provided flexibility last year by starting 24 games in left field and 33 in right. Many of these appearances occurred before Buster Posey became the everyday catcher and ceased playing first base.

Of course, Huff, who's entering the first year of a two-year, $22 million contract, likely would play left if rookie Brandon Belt makes the team and occupies first. Belt grounded out in a ninth-inning pinch-hit appearance against the Dodgers on Friday, dropping his spring batting average to .277.



(mlb.com)

Now I think Bruce Bochy is just poking the cage.

Two days ago, Aubrey Huff played seven innings at first base – a rather long day for a veteran early in the spring – while rookie Brandon Belt started at designated hitter.

Belt hit his first homer in a Giants uniform that day, and Huff was quick to congratulate the kid in his own special way.

“Feeling good?” Huff said.

“Oh yeah. Exciting,” Belt said.

“Well, good. We’ve got to keep the rookies fresh around here.”

So this morning, when I looked at the lineup on the bulletin board, I immediately knew we were in for some rather loud, rather amusing complaints.

Huff was back at first base. And Belt was the DH.

When Huff saw this, he almost dragged Belt by the ear into Bochy’s office. Then he personally thanked the skipper for making sure the veterans were getting enough work in camp. That’s the blog-friendly version, anyway.

Yep, we’re in for another interesting year.



(mercurynews.com)

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Aubrey Huff's "rally thong" will spend its foreseeable future stashed with other underwear, in a sock drawer or wherever idle thongs go to rest.

Huff has placed his fabled thong on irrevocable waivers. The red fashion accessory that he wore late last season as the Giants accelerated their march to the World Series will not accompany him in his efforts to help the club defend its championship.

"That's in a bag. It's retired," Huff said of the thong Thursday before an informal workout at the Giants' Scottsdale Stadium complex. Position players are due to report Friday, with the first full-squad workout scheduled for Saturday.

Huff's thong attracted nationwide attention after word leaked that he wore it daily during the stretch drive. The first baseman/outfielder was enthusiastic about the garment then. But he indicated that it could be a distraction if he brought it back this year.

Huff said he intends to "just play baseball this year and try to keep the antics at home." That wasn't the case last Nov. 3, when Huff reached into his jeans and whipped out the thong while speaking at the ceremony following the World Series parade through San Francisco.

Huff said that baseball's Hall of Fame asked him for the garment to place in an exhibit. Brad Horn, the Hall's senior director of communications and education, cited the generosity displayed by Huff and other Giants who donated items to the shrine. But, Horn added, the thong was not among the requested memorabilia.

"That's one bare essential we do not need," Horn said.

Manager Bruce Bochy jokingly welcomed the thong's disappearance. "It wasn't easy on the eyes," Bochy said. "I can go in the clubhouse a little more now."

After batting .290 and leading the Giants with 26 home runs and 86 RBIs, Huff wants to experience the rush of advancing through the postseason all over again. That partly led him, during a brief dip into the free-agency pool, to spurn an offer from the Dodgers and sign a two-year, $22 million contract to rejoin the Giants. After spending most of his career with Tampa Bay, then a non-contender, and still-struggling Baltimore, Huff reiterated his appreciation for San Francisco's success.

"It's not about the ring for me," Huff said. "It's about the competition and getting in the playoffs and competing at that level with all the excitement. That was so much more fun than I can ever imagine. That's what you play for your whole life, getting in situations like that. I was starved for that for nine years. [I] never had an opportunity to taste that kind of competition in baseball."

Asked how the Giants can avoid complacency, Huff replied, "It's a good question. Throw everything out the window. My motto is, live in the now. I can't look to the future or the past. Try to get ready for this season. Everybody's going to be gunning for you. We're not going to sneak up on anybody this year."

If Huff believes some of his teammates need to adjust their attitude, he'll probably tell them. "He was one of our captains and leaders on and off the field," right-hander Sergio Romo said. Huff often worked in concert with left fielder Pat Burrell, his University of Miami teammate, to police the clubhouse and motivate teammates.

"If they had something to say, they said it," Romo said. "And it was usually productive."

When Huff needed to spur himself to exercise this offseason, he'd watch a DVD replay of the final out of the World Series. "Sometimes you don't want to work out, so I'd pop that on," Huff said. "Then I'd go get my workout in. It's definitely a rush, something they can never take away from you -- ever."

Huff's regimen included certain arm exercises to help his throwing. He started 57 games in left and right field last year, and could play outfield again if rookie Brandon Belt emerges as the Opening Day first baseman. Said Huff, "The old arm started barking just a tad toward the end. I did a little adjustment this year." Huff's outlook also has changed since last February.

"Yesterday, on the way here, I was thinking to myself how nervous I was coming here," Huff said. "But this year it's excitement. I've never been more excited to start a Spring Training."



(mlb.com)

If there is one thing the San Francisco Giants are experiencing in the 2011 season, it is a sense of accomplishment.

After winning their first World Series title after 50 years, the players look relieved and energised by their efforts. However, 2010 has long ended and Aubrey Huff is focussing more on their title defence challenge in the new season.

The Giants beat the Texas Rangers in the 2010 World Series to clinch the major title but the challenge for the top crown has reignited and Huff is ready for the game to kick off.

Huff recently signed a $22 million two-year contract extension with the club in the off-season period. The first baseman has a World Series ring but he is more tuned in to the opportunities in the new season.

“It's not about the ring for me. It's about the competition and getting in the playoffs and competing at that level with all the excitement. That was so much more fun than I can ever imagine. That's what you play for your whole life, getting in situations like that,” he said.

When Huff was asked about how to avoid complacency in 2011, he replied promptly.

“It's a good question. Throw everything out the window. My motto is, live in the now. I can't look to the future or the past. Try to get ready for this season. Everybody's going to be gunning for you. We're not going to sneak up on anybody this year,” said Huff.

Huff and Pat Burrell have been pushing the club in the right direction as well. They motivated the players in the organisation and gave them a target to achieve.

According to Huff’s teammate Sergio Romo, the only thing that matters towards achievement of targets is the right mindset. Romo also claimed that Huff would tell players on many occasions that they would need to adjust their attitude if he saw there was a tough situation on hand.

Huff went on to talk about his push towards working out and said watching the last out from the 2010 World Series would be enough to energise him.



(blogs.bettor.com)

Aubrey Huff didn't pack his red rally thong. He left it at his Florida home in a bag.

That's where he wants it to stay.

"We retired that thing," Huff said today. "Just play baseball this year and try to keep the antics at home."

Huff began wearing the thong with 30 games remaining in the regular season and suggested the Giants would finish 20-10. Well, they did, winning the NL West by one game. He didn't hide it, either, sometimes wearing it through the clubhouse with nothing else on.

"The Hall of Fame wanted to keep the thong for Cooperstwon," Huff said. "I thought about it and said there's no way. One day my kids will go to Cooperstown and see their daddy wore women's underwear. I'm sorry, that's just not going to happen."

The kids would know anyway, right? After all, Huff pulled the garment from his pants and showed the world at the victory parade.

"I'm sure they'll find out about it with all the Internet nowadays," Huff said. "So it doesn't matter."

Great story. But the Hall of Fame says it never wanted the thong. Brad Horn, the Hall's senior director of communications, said, "That's one bare essential we do not need."

They have wonderful senses of humor in Cooperstown.

Horn was quick to say Huff and the Giants were gracious in the moments after the World Series to donate items for the museum. In fact, because it was such a wild scene after Game 5, perhaps Huff misinterpreted what the Hall was requesting.

For the record, Huff did make a donation.

He was asked for his black spikes, and he surrendered one. And kept the other.

"It's very unique, and perhaps that captures the personality of the Giants' first baseman," Horn said.

In retrospect, Huff said his intention was to not let anyone outside the clubhouse know he was wearing a thong.

"It was supposed to stay in house, but it snuck out," Huff said. "We rolled with it."

All the way to the championship.

But that was last year.

Now the thong rests, and manager Bruce Bochy couldn't be happier.

"It wasn't easy on the eyes," Bochy said. "I can go in the clubhouse a little more often now."



(sfgate.com)

View more videos at: http://www.nbcbayarea.com.

(nbcbayarea.com)

The Giants head into spring training with Aubrey Huff tentatively penciled in at first base. However, the team will take a long look at prospect Brandon Belt, who could be ready for the majors. If Belt takes over at first, then Huff is likely headed to left field.



(fantasysp.com)

For Aubrey Huff, the difference between this off-season and last is sort of like the difference between boxers and that red thong for which he became famous last year.

This winter has been much more relaxed.

A year ago, Huff had trouble finding a job. He had been a tough out in the A.L. East for years but was coming off a poor season during which he hit .189 after being traded to the Tigers for the stretch run.

Only one team called, the Giants, and all they offered was a $5 million pay cut for one year. Huff accepted the $3 million deal.

"That was the only option I had," he says. "I don't know if it was a product of being on bad teams my whole career. You see a lot of guys who are good players but seem to be forgotten when they're on teams that never get much publicity or they don't win. I think that had a lot to do with it."
He admits his weak showing in Detroit did, too, but still "it was surprising more teams didn't want to take a shot."

Flash forward a year and Huff's career could not have worked out much better. In 2010, he led the Giants in runs, homers and batting average, won a World Series and re-upped for a guaranteed two years, $22 million.

Along the way, he attracted much attention for his stretch-run fashion statement. The infamous red thong that, if you're wondering, has spent the winter in his closet.

"At the time, winning 20 out of the next 30 would get us to 92 wins, which is usually what you need to make the playoffs," Huff says. "I thought it would be a funny deal to go in there with that and tell the boys, 'This is worth 20-10 and we'll make the playoffs.' We went 19-10 til the last day of the season and we ended up winning. It was kind of a funny deal."

Though he does not plan to don the thong in 2011, he still expects the good times to continue.

"I seriously hated baseball for the four years before San Francisco the way my career had gone," he says. "It definitely was a blessing to be able to go there. I wanted to go back. The Giants wanted me back. I've fallen in love with that city. And it was definitely a sigh of relief to get (the contract) done early."



(sportingnews.com)

In what was almost a foregone conclusion because of their mutual admiration, the Giants brought top home run and RBI man Aubrey Huff back into the fold Tuesday, signing him to a two-year, $22 million deal that includes a $2 million buyout on a third-year club option.

With the team's No. 1 offseason priority quickly secured, now come more difficult challenges, including the potential trickle-down impact of a Huff contract that was a bit more expensive than the Giants were expecting.

What's left for versatile infielder and fellow free agent Juan Uribe?

Uribe is expected to receive multiple offers from other clubs -- his agent met with the St. Louis Cardinals on Tuesday -- and they possibly could be too lucrative to match. General manager Brian Sabean confessed that the club had to increase its offer to retain Huff, who had received a strong offer from an undisclosed team.

What's more, what's left for the eight arbitration-eligible players the Giants must tender by Dec. 2, among them outfielders Cody Ross and Andres Torres, and pitchers Jonathan Sanchez, Javier Lopez, Ramon Ramirez and Santiago Casilla?

Finally, what might be left for Huff's friend and former college teammate Pat Burrell, particularly in light of the fast ascension of prospect Brandon Belt, who could force Huff to the outfield or take over Burrell's spot himself?

Uribe moves to the front burner, but Sabean warned that he doesn't anticipate a resolution as swift as Huff's, which required a mere week of negotiations.

"I think both parties are willing to do something faster, but we're just not talking the same language yet as far as the ballpark figures," Sabean said. "This may take some time to get sorted out."

If Huff was underpaid last year at $3 million, so was Uribe at $3.25 million. What's more, the market for left-side infielders figures to be very competitive because of their relative scarcity. Sabean confessed the Giants have had preliminary trade discussions regarding a shortstop in case they can't re-sign Uribe, but reiterated they will play the waiting game for now.

"You have to be patient because we like the player," Sabean said. "Very much like Huff, we appreciate the versatility, the sacrifice, the presence on and off the field. But you do have to do business at hand, so that's why we're juggling the trade scenarios.

"I can't answer for (Uribe's) side. They're more in the driver's seat than us because they ultimately have to say yes. I really don't know what the outside world is going to bring to him specifically as a shortstop offer-wise."

Later Tuesday, the Giants offered Uribe arbitration, but he almost certainly will decline it.

Sabean said the club likes all eight players eligible for arbitration but didn't know if they'd all be tendered. Ross, Torres, Sanchez and Lopez surely will be, but Ramirez, Casilla, Chris Ray and Mike Fontenot are likely on the bubble.

As for Burrell, Sabean said he told the veteran outfielder the club must complete business in other areas before they address his situation. It may not help Burrell that his buddy Huff, who led the Giants in virtually all production categories this year -- 26 homers, 86 RBIs, 100 runs scored -- commanded such a healthy raise. His salary of $10 million in each of the next two seasons -- plus the guaranteed $2 million -- adds up to an $8 million per year raise over what he got this year. The 2013 option is also for $10 million.

"The market developed that way," Sabean said. "All it takes is one other team, and if you consider (Huff) was seventh in the MVP voting and what he meant and (what we) need going forward, we paid the piper and were glad to do so. You can't look back."

Huff, who turns 34 on Dec. 20, was certainly happy about that. In the last offseason, he did not sign until Jan. 13, with the Giants making the lone $3 million offer, and then only after they'd been spurned by Adam LaRoche on a far more lucrative offer.

Huff wouldn't disclose what team made him the large offer the Giants matched, but said his focus was to return to San Francisco.

"There was a big interest out there, but in the end, it wasn't going to take much to come back here for me," he said. "Some other team would have had to blow me away with a four-year deal or something."

The Giants also disclosed that third baseman Pablo Sandoval is doing his offseason conditioning program in Arizona this winter instead of San Diego, which will enable the club to more closely monitor his progress.



(mercurynews.com)

The return of Aubrey Huff (and possibly Pat Burrell) just got a little more probable this morning as it’s been confirmed that the Huff Daddy hired Ed Hayes to be his agent. If you recall, Huff fired his prior representation earlier this year.

Ed Hayes, based out of Philadelphia, also represents Pat Burrell in association with Scott Parker of Legacy Sports.

Late last week, Giants general manager Brian Sabean mentioned that the Giants had extended their hand to both Huff and infielder Juan Uribe in hopes of bringing them back for a 2011 season.

It should also be noted that while the Giants did decline the option on shortstop Edgar Renteria, Rent did make it clear that he will make an attempt to play in 2011 if he can find a team. The Giants have been indecisive with the media bout bringing back the World Series MVP.



(friscofastball.com)

With so many updates on Aubrey Huff’s red rally thong, we may have to rename this site Huff’s Thong Sports instead. Here’s the background on the thong in case you’re unaware, and it must be pointed out that Huff had it in his mouth at the parade. He wore that thing every day at the end of the season – gross. But what is really cool is that Huff went straight Zoolander with the thong at the parade. If you don’t know what that means, check out the video:

Aubrey Huff and the Giants have mutual interest in working out a new contract, but neither he nor club officials expect a resolution before free agents hit the open market Sunday night.

"No, not yet, man," said Huff, who triumphantly raised his rally thong, the most famous underwear in San Francisco, during Wednesday's victory parade. "I'm just enjoying this time. I'm sure that's going to be there when it's there. Just soaking this whole day in, seriously."

In most years, the Giants would be far down the road in negotiations with their own free agents before their window of exclusivity closed. But they didn't sit back and watch the World Series on television this year, and under new rules, players now become free agents five days after the final out -- reduced from the customary 15 days.

Vice president Bobby Evans said the front office held meetings Tuesday, but they did not expect to announce any deals before 9:01 p.m. Sunday, when free agents may sign with any club.

Huff, 33, didn't receive any other offers this past winter before accepting $3 million to become a Giant. He led the club with 26 home runs and 86 RBIs, and his .385 on-base percentage ranked 10th among NL players. He became the first Giant to score 100 runs in a season since Barry Bonds in 2004.

Huff fired his agency, SFX, earlier this year. He either is shopping for a new agent or could represent himself in negotiations -- which usually points to a quicker resolution.

Huff wagered he'd be back because "you want to defend your title. You want to bring back as many people as you can. With our starting pitching, there's no reason we won't be in position to do it again."

He delivered a passionate message to fans on the steps of City Hall, recounting that nine years of his life were spent in fourth place or worse for hopeless teams in the AL East.

"This organization had the heart to bring me here, and here I am in front of all you beautiful people, and I've got a little present for you," he said, producing his lucky red rally thong and holding it over his head like a title belt. "Rally Thong is going to the Hall of Fame. Or maybe we'll just wear it next spring training. San Francisco, baby!"



(mercurynews.com)

SAN FRANCISCO — Soon after Wednesday's downtown parade has ended, the San Francisco Giants will have to address their most immediate offseason priorities. Here are three key questions for the World Series champions to ponder:

•What to do about the offense? The pitching staff, which led the majors in ERA and held the Texas Rangers to a .190 batting average in the World Series, could return intact. Long reliever Guillermo Mota is the only potential free agent, and he'd like to return.

The question is who will provide the run support. The team's top two home run hitters and RBI men, first baseman Aubrey Huff and infielder Juan Uribe, are free agents. The same goes for left fielder Pat Burrell, who gave the lineup a huge midseason boost. It's reasonable to expect they will want raises.

Team President Larry Baer said he expects the payroll to grow only marginally from last season, when the Giants ranked ninth in the majors at $98.6 million on opening day.

"We want to win, but if we win we're not going to blow things up crazy," Baer said before Monday's clinching victory. "And if we lose, we're not going to blow things up crazy either."

Cody Ross, MVP of the National League Championship Series, is eligible for arbitration after making $4.45 million last season. The Giants have fellow outfielder Aaron Rowand under contract for $12 million next year, so they'll have to decide whether to tender contracts to Ross and Burrell.

The Giants ranked ninth in the NL in runs last season. They will have catcher Buster Posey for a full year in 2011 but need more.



(usatoday.com)

ARLINGTON, Tex. — If there is symbolism in cartoon robots, Aubrey Huff has found it. Huff, the No. 3 hitter for the San Francisco Giants, has the logos for the Autobots and Decepticons — the good and the evil of the old “Transformers” television show — tattooed on his shoulder blades. Huff has seen plenty of both in his life and career.

The good was Huff’s two-run home run in the third inning Sunday in Game 4 of the World Series. His towering blast off Tommy Hunter stayed just inside the right-field foul pole and helped the Giants to a 4-0 victory over the Texas Rangers, Huff’s childhood team. As a result, the Giants stood one victory from a championship.

“It’s in the back of your mind: you’d like to hit a big homer to put you ahead,” Huff said. “It’s pretty surreal right now.”

The bad, in the baseball sense, was playing almost 1,500 games before ever reaching the playoffs. But that could not compare with the tragedy Huff endured at age 6.

Huff’s father, Aubrey Jr., worked as an electrician at an apartment complex. In December 1983, he was killed as a bystander in a workplace domestic dispute. A man had shot his wife and then tried to shoot the apartment manager. Huff’s father pushed the manager out of the way but was killed when the gun went off in the struggle that followed.

Huff’s mother, Fonda, raised him and his sister in Mineral Wells, Tex., about 60 miles west of Arlington, while working in the meat department of a grocery store and taking classes to become a teacher.

“I told my mom one day I wanted to be a professional baseball player — probably, what, 8 years old, 9 years old — and she bought me a batting cage on a Winn-Dixie salary,” Huff said after Game 4. “Single mother raising two kids, to buy me a batting cage, I think she did it to keep me out of trouble more than anything. I don’t think she realized how much I worked hard in that thing every day.”

That work began Huff’s winding path back to Arlington for the World Series. He guessed that he had seen the Rangers play 100 times growing up, rooting for stars like Juan Gonzalez and less memorable names like Steve Buechele.

But mostly, Huff said, he rooted for Nolan Ryan, the Hall of Fame starter and now the Rangers’ president. Huff had tickets to Ryan’s last no-hitter, in 1991, but he said his mother was tired that night and did not take him.

“I grew up watching Nolan Ryan pitch,” Huff said. “He’s a childhood idol of mine. I wanted to be a pitcher because of him. Turns out I didn’t throw very hard.”

Huff’s mother has been to the World Series games, with other family members. High school friends have bought their own tickets, Huff said, and he has recognized random faces in the stands while stretching before the games.

But Huff is here on business, trying to help the Giants win their first title since 1954, four years before the franchise moved to San Francisco. He planned a lunch with old friends on Sunday, but his children and wife felt sick, so he canceled. Huff has received lots of phone calls and e-mails and has tried to tune out the distractions.

It has never been like this for him before. At the end of the regular season, only two players — Randy Winn of the St. Louis Cardinals and Michael Young of the Rangers — had played in more career games without appearing in the postseason. But Huff had his chances.

Huff played his first six seasons for losing teams in Tampa Bay. In 2006, the Rays dealt him to the Houston Astros, who were trying to defend their National League title. The deal helped the Rays, who got the future All-Star Ben Zobrist. But the Astros struggled to finish .500, and Huff hit .250.

The Baltimore Orioles rewarded Huff, anyway, with a three-year, $20 million contract. But by the end of the deal, in late 2009, he was playing for the Detroit Tigers, who fumbled their American League Central lead as Huff hit .189.

That showing, and a crowded market for first basemen, diminished Huff’s value in free agency. The Giants showed interest in Nick Johnson, who signed with the Yankees for $5.75 million. They made an offer to Adam LaRoche, but he signed with Arizona for $6 million.

Huff had doubts about playing at AT&T Park, with its cavernous right-center field. But he acknowledged that he had no offers, and when the Giants called, he jumped at their one-year, $3 million proposal.

“We needed a left-handed hitter,” General Manager Brian Sabean said. “We were too right-handed. He was a guy who had been around the block in terms of average and run production, and he had played enough first base that we were able to see that he’d be playable there.”

Signing Huff might have been the steal of the off-season. He ranked 10th in the league in on-base plus slugging, at .891, while leading the Giants in homers (26) and runs batted in (86).

He also helped the Giants fit their prize rookie, Buster Posey, into the lineup. When the Giants promoted Posey in May, Bengie Molina was still their catcher. Rather than unseat Molina immediately, the Giants shifted Huff to the outfield and used Posey at first base until they traded Molina to Texas in July.

Huff made 57 starts in the outfield, his most since 2005, proving his versatility at age 33.

“He claims to be the best athlete on the team, if you talk to him,” Manager Bruce Bochy said. “But he has done a great job wherever we put him and has stabilized our lineup. I knew he was a good player, but he’s even better than I thought.”

Young pitching, more than any factor, has carried the Giants this far. But they needed an anchor for their offense, too, and Huff has provided it. For a player so used to losing, it has been quite a transformation.



(nytimes.com)

First-year San Francisco Giants and former University of Miami teammates Aubrey Huff and Pat Burrell helped the Giants win their first World Series since 1954. Huff had his first ever post-season HR in Game 4 series scoring 2 runs in the Giants’ 4-0 victory and also had a key sacrifice bunt in Game 5 to help put a runner on third base. Burrell had a rough series for the Giants going 0 for 13 with 11 strikeouts in the Series. This is Burrell’s second World Series ring as he won one with the Philadelphia Phillies 2 years ago. This was Huff’s first ever post-season appearance and ring. Congrats to both proCanes!

Reporting from San Francisco — Aubrey Huff does not have to search far or wide to find his boyhood hero.

He is right there, across the field. He is Nolan Ryan, the president of the Texas Rangers, a hero to two generations of Texans.

Huff, the first baseman for the San Francisco Giants, grew up in Fort Worth rooting for Ryan and the Rangers. Now, the team that Ryan put together is the one standing between Huff and a World Series championship, and yet Huff offers nothing but admiration for Ryan.

The Rangers, after all, are in their first World Series. They had not even won a postseason series before Ryan took over.

"To see what he's done with that organization is pretty special," Huff said. "He's turned it from a big banging offensive club into being able to pitch."

Huff, like so many boys in Texas, wanted to grow up to be just like Ryan.

"I wanted to be a pitcher," Huff said. "I didn't have the arm."

He had the bat, and still he could not keep his eyes off Ryan.

"I had tickets to Nolan Ryan's sixth no-hitter, and my mom was too tired from work that day to take us," Huff said. "He threw a no-hitter that night, and we missed it. I was so upset."

That might be a little bit of a Texas tall tale. Ryan threw his sixth no-hitter in Oakland. He threw his seventh and final no-hitter in Texas, in 1991, striking out 16 in a 3-0 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays.

Huff was 14.

The Rangers moved from Arlington Stadium — a glorified minor league ballpark — into their new home in 1994. That stadium is now called Rangers Ballpark in Arlington — that Ameriquest Field deal did not work out so well — and it will play host to its first World Series game Saturday.

"That was the most unbelievable park I had ever seen," Huff said. "I just remember Dollar Hot Dog Night when I was a kid … just up there in upper deck eating hot dogs all day.

"And we've got the World Series coming up there, so it's pretty cool."

Huff's father died when he was 6, shot and killed as he tried to disarm a man involved in a domestic dispute. Huff was raised by his mother, and by her parents, the ones most responsible for getting him hooked on baseball.

The grandparents have passed on now, but Huff remembers them often. He thought of them the other day when he asked his mother whom his grandparents might be rooting for in this World Series.

"I'm sure they're rooting for you to do well," Huff recalled his mother saying, "but they're probably rooting for the Rangers."



(latimes.com)

SAN FRANCISCO — Parade around the clubhouse in a victory thong, and the fact that you led the National League champions in homers, RBI, runs, slugging percentage and OPS can get lost in the shuffle. That’s Aubrey Huff‘s fate these days, and he couldn’t be happier. He answers The Big 5 here:

So if Giants fans wear fake beards for Brian Wilson, long-haired wigs for Tim Lincecum and panda hats for Pablo Sandoval, what’s the  fitting tribute for you?
Through a slightly embarrassed smirk: “Wilson has been here his whole career, and he’s such a warrior out there; fans have grown to him. Timmy is the face of the franchise. This is my first year here; I’m just trying to fit in with these morons. I had to go over the top. I’m pretty tame compared to these guys. We’ve got a lot of characters. It’s strange to say, but the weirder you are, it seems the more you win.”

On playing in the post-season, and the pressure involved: “I’ve always been a guy who’s played the game kinda loose, not a lot of nerves. But I gotta tell you, there have been some nerves. Especially in Game 6 in Philly. That was probably the most-nervous I’ve been playing a baseball game.”

On growing up in Fort Worth as a Texas Rangers fan, and his favorite player: “I was at the final game at the old park, watched the ceremony when they moved (home) plate over to the new one. The next year, I went to the new park, and thought that was the most-unbelievable park I had ever seen. I remember $1 hot dog nights; 12-14 years old, sitting in the upper deck, eating $1 hot dogs all day. Now the World Series is coming up there, so it’s pretty cool.

“Nolan Ryan. I’m a hitter, but I grew up wanting to pitch. I had tickets to his sixth no-hitter (May 1, 1991 against Toronto), and my Mom was too tired from work that day to take us. He threw a no-hitter, and I was so upset.”

On the likely possibility of designated hitting in Games 3-5: “That’s up to Boch (Giants manager Bruce Bochy). He’s nailed the lineups all postseason. Obviously, I’m comfortable DH-ing. I’ve done it a lot. At this point, I don’t care where I am. If I’m hitting (in the) eight-hole, I’m fine with it. I’ve hit six-hole the last two nights, and it’s working. I’ll hit behind the pitcher; I don’t care right now.”

On postseason hitting hero Juan Uribe: “He’s so strong, and he swings so hard. He runs into so many balls late in games. It’s gotta be 8-9-10 homers late in games that have tied it or put us ahead. He’s really, really clutch. We love him as a teammate. He’s got a lot of energy. He’s a fun guy – if you can understand him.”



(hardballtalk.nbcsports.com)

Eight years ago, the Los Angeles Angels of Orange County rallied around a card-carrying monkey to beat big-headed Barry Bonds and the San Francisco Giants in the 2002 World Series. When this year's installment of the Fall Classic begins Wednesday night in San Fransisco, the Giants are hoping the red rally thong of former Orioles fan favorite Aubrey Huff can tip the scales against the Texas Rangers.

In late August, the Giants first baseman was stuck in a slump, so he did what most major-league players would do in that situation: start wearing a woman's thong. The Giants responded to win 20 of their last 30 games, sneak into the playoffs and ride Huff's banana-hammock magic all the way to the World Series.

"It was just something to kind of loosen the guys up when it started, and it turned out to be kind of a nice run," Huff recently told The Mercury News in this interesting feature. "I couldn't stop and it's actually gotten quite comfortable in the last month and a half."

Cliff Lee and Josh Hamilton are superstars, but there's no way I'm betting against Huff's magical underpants. Throw in Brian Wilson's Grizzly Adams beard and Big Time Timmy Jim, Tim Lincecum, and I'm taking the Giants in six.



(baltimoresun.com)

When Aubrey Huff was a baseball-loving boy, his mother had a surprise for him and his younger sister. She had gotten free tickets at work to go watch their favorite team: the Texas Rangers.

But her son had practice that night, so Fonda Huff decided to not even tell the kids about the tickets. She would just take them some other time.
"Well after we got home, he turned on the TV and called out to me, 'Mom, come here, Nolan Ryan is throwing another no-hitter!" Fonda recalled. "I said, 'Oh Aubrey, we could have been there.' And he was like, 'What!"

Huff went a decade in the major leagues without ever making the postseason. Now that he has reached the World Series, the carefree Giants first baseman who wears a lucky "rally thong" beneath his uniform is facing his boyhood team and his one-time idol Ryan, now the Rangers president.

"Well, they're not my favorite team anymore," Huff said. "But it will be pretty neat going to my first World Series and playing in Texas."

But this series represents something much deeper for Huff. His single-parent mother will be attending the three games scheduled in Arlington. She raised her two children in small-town Texas after her husband was murdered in a workplace shooting when Aubrey was just 6 years old.
When she saw how her shy boy had thrown himself into baseball, Fonda paid to have a batting cage built in their backyard -- even though she really didn't have the money for such an extravagance on her Winn-Dixie supermarket-clerk salary.

She wasn't thinking about a future major-league career for her son.

"I just didn't want him to be without because his father got killed," Fonda said. "I think it was a way to make up to him for not having a dad. He didn't have anybody to pitch to him."

But Huff never felt like he went without.

"When I lost my dad, she put all of her efforts into me and my sister," said Huff, who has a tattoo on his upper left arm featuring a guitar to honor his country music-loving dad. "It's a pretty cool story when you think about everything she did for us. It's safe to say that I wouldn't be here right now without her."

When Giants manager Bruce Bochy talks about his team being a bunch of "cast-offs and misfits," Huff is Exhibit A. He posted some strong seasons -- like in 2008, when he hit .304 with 32 homers and 108 RBIs with Baltimore -- that were lost on dreadful teams.

But last off-season Huff, 33, was on his couch, listening to his phone not ring and wondering if his career was over. The Giants signed him almost as an afterthought in January.

He responded with a bounce-back year, hitting .290 with 26 homers and 90 RBIs that epitomized these surprising Giants. Just as important, the self-styled "Huff Daddy" has eased the clubhouse mood with his wise-cracks and stunts, such as prancing around in a red thong with glitter on the waistband.

You would never suspect that his childhood was tinged with tragedy and sadness.

His father, Aubrey Huff II, was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Newspaper accounts describe how he was an apartment electrician in Abilene, Texas, when an estranged husband shot his wife and tried shooting the complex manager. The elder Huff intervened and was killed in the struggle.

It was left to Fonda to raise their two young children, mostly in Mineral Wells, Texas. She coached her daughter Angela's softball teams and went back to school to earn a teaching degree. And she did everything possible to encourage her son's love of baseball.

"I took both kids to all the little Rangers camps when they were growing up," said Fonda, who now lives in Florida where she helps develop instructional strategies for math teachers. "They got to meet all the players and got their autographs. It was a really big deal for them to go to three or four games a year."

Huff, of course, wasn't there to see Ryan throw his seventh, and final, no-hitter against Toronto on May 1, 1991.

"By the ninth inning, I was crying because we didn't go," Huff recalled. "I was pretty upset. I've still got those framed tickets somewhere."

But most kids also didn't have their own batting cage. Fonda and her father constructed the cage themselves and added a self-loading pitching machine at a cost of more than $2,500.

"Other boys would say it's too hot outside or they wanted to stay inside and play video games, but not Aubrey," she said.

While her son was quiet, he showed no bitterness or anger that might be expected from someone who loses his dad at such a young age.

"Maybe it was when it happened, right before his seventh birthday," Fonda said. "It might have been harder for him if it happened when he was older."

As he blossomed into a star player at college powerhouse Miami, he came out of his shell thanks, in part, to the constant ribbing he took from current Giants teammate Pat Burrell.

Today, he is the life of the playoff party. Just look, if you dare, at the magical thong.

He began wearing it under his uniform on Aug. 30 as a joke, telling teammates: "Guys, here's 20 wins right here." The Giants proceeded to go 20-10 and clinched the National League West title on the last day of the season.

A legend was born.

"It was just something to kind of loosen the guys up when it started, and it turned out to be kind of a nice run," Huff said. "I couldn't stop and it's actually gotten quite comfortable in the last month and a half."

The fashion trend does not seem to have caught on with the rest of the clubhouse even though he recently distributed samples sent to him by thong maker.

"I don't think anybody wants to see me in one," said manager Bruce Bochy. "And I don't really enjoy seeing Aubrey in his."

For her part, mom doesn't quite know what to make of the thong.

"Every time I ask him about it, he changes the subject," Fonda said, laughing.



(mercurynews.com)

Aubrey Huff started wearing a “lucky” red, rhinestone-encrusted thong around the clubhouse on August 30 and the Giants are 25-12 since then, so suddenly the “rally thong” is a very popular item in San Francisco.

In fact, Andrew Baggarly of the San Jose Mercury News reports that the company producing Huff’s preferred brand of thongs sent three giant boxes of their products to the Giants prior to yesterday’s game.

As they say, hilarity ensued.

Baggarly writes that “Huff became a giddy, thong-flinging Santa Claus this morning, distributing them to everyone in the clubhouse” and even handed them out to various media members covering the team. Oddly enough, Huff got into some trouble a few years ago for doing a radio appearance alongside a woman who wasn’t wearing any underwear.



(nbcsports.com)

ATLANTA -- Bruce Bochy admits he didn't know exactly what he was going to get when Aubrey Huff joined the Giants over the winter, other than what he knew from stats and what he'd heard from others.

What the veteran manager found out was that Huff can deliver more than a powerful stroke from the left side. He can bring some corner versatility in the field and a steady hand at the plate. On top of that, he provides a clubhouse presence that has helped a diverse group of Giants come together through numerous roster changes and challenges to reach the postseason.

And, in the grand tradition of the venerable American pastime, Huff does it all while wearing a red rally thong under his double-knits, at least since Aug. 30.

"Well, I'm not going to go there on the red thong, but he's a better all-around player than I even thought," Bochy said of Huff on Saturday, as the Giants prepared to play Game 3 of the National League Division Series against the Braves at 1:30 p.m. PT on Sunday.

Thong or no thong, Huff has been a boon for Bochy and the Giants, becoming a "glue" guy for a team that has ridden team success into the playoffs.

For Bochy, the depth of Huff's abilities on and off the field came as a pleasant surprise.

"I just didn't get to see him play out on the field a lot and what he can do with the bat," Bochy said of Huff, who played all but a half-season of his previous nine years in the American League. "You know, he's been pretty much in our three-hole [hitter] the whole season, so he's been the stabilizer in the lineup. But also in the clubhouse, he's very competitive, but very loose -- keeps the guys loose, great sense of humor.

"He doesn't take himself so seriously, but he takes the game very seriously, and he plays hard. He has fun doing it, and he makes sure that the rest of the guys are doing the same."

Exhibit A: The thong. Huff said he donned the skimpy underwear to loosen up the troops in the heat of the postseason chase, and the Giants erased a six-game lead to win the NL West on the season's final day. Mission accomplished.

"I couldn't stop, and I'm wearing it right now, if you're interested," he said to laughter in the media interview room Friday before Game 2. "Kind of get used to it."

And as he exited the interview room, he reached back and gave that thong a playful snap.

Really, the method to Huff's madness is to become a leader with a helpful, humorous hand, not a hard-scrabble veteran who shows youngsters the ropes with harsh words and rookie hazing.

That's the type of treatment he says he received when he was younger. Coming up to the Rays just two years after signing as a fifth-round Draft pick out of the University of Miami, where he played with current teammate Pat Burrell, he didn't really appreciate it.

"I know when I came up as a rookie, I had older guys that rode me hard and it made it tough as a rookie," Huff said. "And I always told myself, 'I don't want to be that guy,' because it makes it harder, and everybody is wearing you out and making it harder than it should be."

So while rookies such as Buster Posey and Madison Bumgarner made the transition to the big leagues, Huff was there. And while established young Giants stars like Tim Lincecum and Pablo Sandoval went through their periods of struggle, Huff was there -- in the starting lineup 154 of his team-high 157 games played this season, mostly at first base.

Along the way, he led the club in batting (.290, while Posey's .305 was short of plate appearances to qualify), homers (26) and RBIs (86), while ranking 10th in the NL in on-base percentage plus slugging (OPS) with a .891 mark. He was fifth in the league with 28 RBIs to put his club ahead, and seventh with 14 game-winning RBIs.

And all those numbers put to rest a really big one: By the end of the season, Huff had played in 1,479 games without reaching the postseason, at the time the third-longest postseason drought.

Once he got there, he was a little more loose than he thought he'd be in the playoff atmosphere. He got his first hit out of the way in Game 1, and though he's 1-for-7 thus far, he remains a threat in a crucial spot in the Giants' lineup.

"I went out and took the field, and it felt like a regular game to me, to be honest with you," Huff said, citing the tense San Diego series as a good primer for the postseason. "I was very surprised."

Maybe his own looseness wore off on himself. Or maybe it's the thong.

Or maybe it's just a 33-year-old veteran realizing he can have a place of leadership on a team that goes to the playoffs by bringing the fun.

"I don't care if you're a veteran or a younger guy, if you're having fun in the clubhouse and everybody is having a good time and everybody really starts caring for each other, I think that has a lot to do with winning on the field," Huff said. "I don't think you can actually play baseball without a good group of guys that mix well together."



(mlb.com)

When the first pitch of the Atlanta Braves-San Francisco Giants game occurs around 9:40 EST tonight, the monkey will officially leap off the back of Giants’ first baseman Aubrey Huff.

For a day, Huff Daddy, as he was jokingly referred to for three years in the Orioles clubhouse, is the second active biggest loser in baseball heading into tonight's game. Huff had played 1,479 games without appearing in a playoff game. He’s certainly aware of it. When his Detroit Tigers lost in a one-game tiebreaker last season, Huff joked with friends that it was obviously his presence that killed the Tigers’ playoff chances.

Huff was third on the list behind St. Louis outfielder Randy Winn (1,717 games) and Texas infielder Michael Young (1,508). But Young escaped infamy Wednesday when the Rangers beat the Tampa Bay Rays.

Three of the top four should shed biggest loser status this postseason. No. 4, Philadelphia’s Mike Sweeney, is on the Phillies’ active roster and likely will get into a playoff game at least as a pinch-hitter.

If and when he does, the Orioles will then have three biggest losers in the active Top 10, though two may not be with the team in 2011.

With the departure of Young, Huff and Sweeney, Brian Roberts will move up to sixth with 1,194 games played without a playoff appearance. Corey Patterson (who wasn’t active when the Cubs made the playoffs) will be ninth with 1,097 and Ty Wigginton will be 10th with 1,060.

Thanks to Bill Arnold of Beyond the Box Score for helping me with the list.

Assuming Huff and Sweeney are out, the new Top 10 is: Randy Winn, 1,717; Adam Dunn, 1,448; Vernon Wells, 1,393; Frank Catalanotto, 1,265; Jack Wilson, 1,251; Brian Roberts, 1,194; Felipe Lopez, 1,137; Lyle Overbay, 1,138; Corey Patterson, 1,097; Ty Wigginton, 1,060.



(baltimoresun.com)

Aubrey Huff is in his 11th major league season and 33 years old. San Francisco's first baseman also is a playoff rookie.

Good thing he's got a couple of former World Series winners surrounding him in the Giants' clubhouse: Pat Burrell and Aaron Rowand. It's still sinking in for Huff that he's about to play more meaningful games in October. San Francisco opens its best-of-five NL division series at home Thursday night against the wild-card Atlanta Braves.

Huff lived it up after the Giants beat the Padres on the season's final day to clinch their first playoff berth and NL West title since 2003.

"It was weird, when the champagne was done it never really kicked in," Huff said of what he'd just accomplished. "Once the hangover wears off and you have a day to reflect on it, you realize it's real and you cherish it."

Huff has provided a key boost for the Giants, who signed him to a $3 million, one-year contract in January. He had 26 home runs and 86 RBIs while playing 157 games — 100 of those at first base, 46 in left field and 34 in right.

While the majority of the Giants are in their first playoffs like Huff, they have played more than their share of close games to get here.

"We don't have a lot of playoff experience, but this team is battle-tested," Huff said. "All year long, almost every game came down to the eighth inning."



(ap.com)

SAN FRANCISCO -- It was a moment that had been building in Aubrey Huff's mind for nine seasons. It was the top of the ninth, and the Giants had a three-run lead and were only one out away from a postseason berth.

Standing in the middle of a loud, orange-clad AT&T Park crowd, the Giants first baseman looked up toward the sky and told himself to remain calm.

Then, Giants closer Brian Wilson fired a 97-mph fastball past San Diego's Will Venable, who swung and missed.

After nine long seasons, Huff was going to the playoffs.

"Nine years has been a killer and the mental grind has taken its toll over the years," Huff said. "Today, to get in this position, especially on the last day ... it had to be this torturous for me. It can't be easy."

Of course it can't, because over the course of his career, wins have been the hardest thing for Huff to come by. After spending 6 1/2 seasons with Tampa Bay in the early 2000s, Huff spent 2 1/2 seasons in Baltimore.

Each of those seasons, Huff never came close to sniffing the playoffs. In 2006 and 2009, he came close after midseason deals sent him to Houston and Detroit, respectively, but, as was the case throughout his career, he came up short.

Now, he's not only going to the playoffs, but also is one of the key members -- offensively, defensively and in the clubhouse -- of why it is happening. Pat Burrell, who played with Huff at the University of Miami, said when he was popping champagne, it wasn't only for himself, but also for Huff.

"Huffy and I go back a long time," Burrell said "A player as good as he is, to play as long as he has, to have never been given a chance to get in the postseason, I was just as happy for him as I was for me."

Six innings before Huff was trying to relax in the ninth, Freddy Sanchez had his welcome-to-the-playoffs moment.

Another hard-luck veteran who spent 5 1/2 losing seasons in Pittsburgh, Sanchez had the chance to give the Giants early momentum, something they had been lacking in the previous two games. With one out in the third, Giants starter Jonathan Sanchez tripled. After Andres Torres struck out, Freddy Sanchez singled up the middle to score the pitcher and give the Giants a 1-0 lead.

After rounding first base, Sanchez fist-bumped Giants first-base coach Roberto Kelly. On the very next pitch, Huff doubled to score Sanchez. The 32-year-old second baseman ran across home plate, began screaming in excitement and didn't stop until reaching the Giants dugout.

"I've never been here before and you can't put into words what this feels like," a champagne-soaked Sanchez said afterward. "I'm a real energetic guy, I get fired up, and when we were able to go up when Huffy was able to drive me in, I was excited."

A few hours later, the champagne was finally uncorked and sprayed, and the Giants partied like National League West champions. Huff and Sanchez, drenched in tears and surrounded by teammates and family members, basked in the glory of finally going to the postseason.

Huff and Sanchez, like all those Giants fans out there, know torture. Also like Giants fans, they'd gladly go through it all again for days like Sunday.

"I'm not complaining," Huff said. "Ten years I've missed the playoffs, all those years, and it was worth the wait. I'd do it all over again if I could."



(mlb.com)

SAN FRANCISCO — Hawaii's warm breezes can wait. When October rolls around, Aubrey Huff would much rather feel San Francisco's cool winds, even if they knock down a few of his drives.

Now in his 11th season, the Giants first baseman went into the Thursday with 1,463 regular-season games played without a postseason appearance, the third-highest total among active players behind the St. Louis Cardinals' Randy Winn (1,705) and the Texas Rangers' Michael Young (1,493).

The closest Huff came was last year, when the Detroit Tigers— who acquired him from the Baltimore Orioles in a mid-August trade — lost a one-game playoff with the Minnesota Twins. Even the excitement of that race was dimmed by Huff's poor performance with Detroit, for which he batted .189 with two homers in 40 games.

Now he's one of the key contributors on a contending team, which he finds invigorating.

"You're not as tired. You're not looking forward to the end of the season as much," Huff says of the difference between playing for a contender and an also-ran, which would kindly describe his time with the Tampa Bay Rays and the Orioles.

"This time of year in Baltimore I'd be getting in at 4 (p.m.) for a 4:30 stretch and be out just as soon as the game was over. Now I get here by 1:30, 2 and stick around after the game, go over situations. You're constantly thinking about the game. But teams like I've been on, you're just waiting for Hawaii."

With the Giants challenging for both the National League West lead and the wild card, Huff figures to be playing meaningful games down to the final week of the season and perhaps beyond. That would certainly make up for all those home runs lost to AT&T Park.

Just about every time left-handed swinging Huff pounds a ball with all his might at the ballpark, only to have its unforgiving dimensions or the cool, damp air of the San Francisco summer rob him of a home run, the TV cameras catch him grimacing, occasionally even taking out his frustrations on inanimate objects.

"There have certainly been some games when it has been frustrating, some balls, especially late in the game, that would have won some games for us," Huff says. "But that's the way baseball is. You look around the league and some guys hit in bandboxes and some guys hit in giant yards, and that's just the way it is."

Plus, his experience as a first-year Giant has been so rewarding, there's not much point in harping on the few negatives. Not only has Huff revived his career, but he is thriving as a veteran presence in the clubhouse, keeping his teammates loose with his offbeat sense of humor.

Coming off a season when he batted .241 and his home run total dwindled from 32 in 2008 to 15, Huff drew scant interest as a free agent before taking San Francisco's one-year, $3 million deal, which represented a $5 million pay cut.

He has paid off handsomely, leading the Giants in home runs (24) and RBI (81) with an on-base-plus-slugging percentage of .898. Signed as a first baseman, Huff has also provided great versatility with his willingness to play the outfield — where he had not seen action since 2006 — which opened a spot for rookie Buster Posey when he first came up in late May.

Posey has since moved to his regular position behind the plate, while Huff is back at first. If the Giants remain in contention until the end, Huff figures to garner MVP votes. He and outfielder Andres Torres, who's out for up to two weeks because of an appendectomy, have been the Giants' two constant sources of offensive production.

"On a consistent basis, they've had the biggest impact on this club," manager Bruce Bochy says. "You look at the numbers, on-base (percentage), power. ... Those two have been as consistent as anybody we've had. We hate to think where we'd be without those two."



(usatoday.com)

SAN DIEGO -- Aubrey Huff can beat you with his bat and his surprising defensive ability. But on Friday night he beat the Padres with his legs. He's a player with an old-time attitude who might very well be the Most Valuable Player on the Giants squad this season.

"It's been a fun run so far," Huff said after he scored the only run as the Giants edged the Padres, 1-0, at PETCO Park to pull within percentage points of first place in the National League West. "But to me it doesn't mean anything unless we make the playoffs."

In 2009, he split the season with the Orioles and Tigers, batting .241 with 15 homers and 85 RBIs. But as a 33-year-old free agent, for most of this past winter he didn't have a place to play.

"I didn't really have a job until these guys called late in the offseason," he recalled. "I knew I had a lot in the tank. The summer has been very satisfying. But we still have a long way to go."

Huff leads the team with 24 home runs and 81 RBIs in 137 games. His .291 batting average is the highest on the club for anyone who's played in more than 100 games.

The Giants knew he could hit when they signed him to a one-year contract worth $3 million. But they weren't sure of his depth as a player.

"I knew Aubrey was a good player," Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. "I didn't know he was this good defensively. He did a good job when we used him in the outfield -- right field or left field. He really worked hard at first base. I know he was a DH a lot over [in the American League]. He took it upon himself to get the work in to make himself better."

Huff has played in 80 games at first base this season and another 63 in the outfield. He's committed only three errors, all of them at first base. He hadn't played the outfield since 2006 when he was with the Astros, so his 1.000 fielding percentage out there is, let's say, unexpected.

Huff, though, has never considered himself to be a one-dimensional player.

"That's what you guys say," Huff said, pointing toward the media. "I've gotten that my whole life and you don't know where it comes from. You just roll with it and go out there and play. You don't worry about what everyone else thinks and says."

Huff even has six stolen bases this season and his swipe of second with no one out in the seventh was a key play in a then-scoreless game. Huff was hit in the funny bone by Padres starter Clayton Richard to open the inning. After several pickoff attempts from reliever Luke Gregerson, Huff took off as Pat Burrell struck out, just beating the throw from Padres catcher Nick Hundley.

"You know, Aubrey is pretty good over there, reading pitchers," Bochy said about Huff's baserunning ability. "He gets a good jump when he needs to and we let him go sometimes."

Huff confirmed that Bochy gives him a green light to run at will.

"I'm not a burner or anything," said Huff, who only has 31 steals in his 11-year career. "I have some good instincts about when to go and when not to. I don't have Darren Ford speed. When a pitcher is throwing 97 [mph] I'm not going to make it. I've got to pick my spots. Like tonight, it was perfect timing. We're struggling trying to score runs. I figured I'd take a chance."

Running on contact minutes later as Jose Guillen grounded to short ahead of him could have been a big mistake. Huff barely beat Miguel Tejada's throw to third baseman Chase Headley, who was a split-second late making the tag.

"It was actually a dumb play on my part," Huff said. "From where I was at, it looked like it was going to go into the hole. I thought he hit it a lot harder than he did. So once I went, you've got to go, you've got to get there. I headed to the inside of the bag and Headley was over to my right. I was safe. But it's not the way you draw it up. It was not a smart play."

Huff scored when Juan Uribe barely beat out the back end of a ground-ball double play. It was the game's only run and once again Huff proved his value and versatility.



(mlb.com)

Aubrey Huff is in a 3-for-32 slump. He didn’t hit a ball out of the infield tonight. Before Juan Uribe’s huge homer in the ninth, it looked like Huff’s pop-up with the tying run at first base in the eighth would be a huge letdown.

Anyway, like most baseball players, Huff is superstitious. So he made a little, ahem, alteration to his uniform to help change his luck.

He’s wearing a red thong. And not the kind that Omar Vizquel used to wear. I’m pretty sure this one came from the lingerie department, not men’s furnishings.

“We’re 3-1 with it,” he blared after tonight’s raucous victory. “I might never get a hit the rest of the year, though.”

Speaking personally, the last thing we need is for Huff to go 4-for-4 with the thong. Then he’ll wear it the rest of the season. Ordinarily that wouldn’t be a problem, but he walks around the clubhouse in it. He conducts interviews wearing only his thong. I’m not sure about this, but I think he wears little else while in the food room, too.

That can’t fly with the health inspector.

–
Whenever the Giants get a huge victory, Huff’s reaction is the best. He’s waited a decade for moments like these. And he, along with Pat Burrell, also started a little tradition in the dugout: The slug-a-teammate maneuver.

When something remarkable happens on the field, you’ll see Huff punch guys in the chest. There was just one problem tonight.

“I really wanted to, but I think I was standing next to DeRosa,” Huff said. “He’s hurt. I didn’t want to punch a hurt guy.”

–
So I hear that Huff and Burrell got themselves matching yellow blazers with the University of Miami logo on the chest. They wore them on the team flight down to Los Angeles. They probably looked like bowl representatives.

No need to make a visit to watch USC, though. Bah-dum-dum.



(mercurynews.com)

Aubrey Huff is part comedian, part prankster and part roast master, lacking the tuxedo but sparing his teammates nothing else. When it comes to the self-styled Huff Daddy, there is no such thing as "too much information."

Here is the most unbelievable thing Huff has uttered as a Giant, though:

"I was a painfully shy kid," he said, stopping as he sensed disbelief. "No, really, I was."

Huff grew up in a trailer park outside of Fort Worth, Texas. He lost his father at a young age and immersed himself in video games and cartoons. He described himself as a gangly, pizza-faced kid in high school who hit just one home run as a junior and senior combined, even though the outfield fence was just 350 feet to dead center. Even as he put on weight in junior college and started hitting deep drives, he portrayed a total lack of confidence.

So who brought him out of his shell?

"That guy," Huff said, pointing across the Giants clubhouse to Pat Burrell, his one-time teammate at the University of Miami.

"When I transferred, the first guy I met was that son of a "..." Huff said. "I hadn't met such an arrogant (jerk) in my life. I couldn't stand him. All he did was rag on me."

You knew Huff's next story about Burrell would be good. He prefaced it by saying, "Awww, I'm sure Pat won't care if I tell this."

"After two weeks at Miami, I wanted to go home," Huff said. "So my mom flies out, trying to convince me to stay. I was living with two seniors, and they ragged me, too. I just didn't understand all this baseball ragging nonsense. She's in my room one night and I'm sitting on my bed and she's telling me to give it another two weeks.

"Anyway, there's a knock on the door, and before I can even get off the bed, Pat comes barging in with a six-pack in his hand, dripping wet, buck naked.

"So I jumped up and shut the door. Coming from Texas, these things didn't happen. I said, 'See what I'm dealing with here, Mom?'

"She just started laughing and said, 'Actually, Aubrey, that's pretty darn funny.'

"I thought, 'My God, if my mom can laugh at this, why can't I?' "

Huff went to practice the next day determined to take Burrell's ribbing and throw it right back at him. He recalled his initial comeback attempts as awkward, but he got better at it.

It was almost as vital a skill as hitting a curveball.

"I really believe that's when I learned to be a ballplayer, man," Huff said. "If I didn't go to Miami, if Pat didn't wear me out, I wouldn't have made it to the big leagues. This is a humbling, challenging game. You have to be mentally tough."

The Giants will need plenty of mental toughness if they hope to overcome their considerable flaws and make the playoffs for the first time since 2003, and the two former Hurricanes have brought a cocky edge to the clubhouse. It doesn't matter that Huff was a panic signing whom nobody else wanted last winter or that Burrell was picked out of the recycling bin after the Tampa Bay Rays released him in May.

Huff is savoring every moment of his first winning season. He flexes his muscles as he saunters out to batting practice, yelling to nobody in particular, "Time for the laser show, boys!"

Back in spring training, he couldn't stop staring at teammate Nate Schierholtz's washboard abs. Finally, he snapped a cell phone picture and sent it to his wife with the message, "Look honey, I've been working out!"

And Burrell, who grew up in the Santa Cruz mountains, has been re-energized by his homecoming. He will receive another today when the Giants begin a series at Philadelphia, where he won a World Series ring in 2008.

"Pat's the guy who tells you what you need to hear, even when you don't want to hear it," Huff said. "He's mentally strong. He went through all the boos in Philly, and when he went back to get his ring, they gave him a standing ovation. It made him tear up after going through all that."

Burrell's pennant-race experience isn't just rubbing off on the Giants' young players. He also is a compass for veterans such as Huff and Freddy Sanchez, who have played for losing teams their whole career.

After a game at Dodger Stadium last month, Burrell and Huff stayed in the clubhouse and talked for almost two hours.

"He was briefing me on it, how it's going to be," Huff said. "He said, 'It's a different animal, bro. You may think you're ready, but you might be shocked. It's the same game, the same teams. You just have to slow it down.' "

But not the banter during batting practice. That's always a rapid-fire session, and pity the target who takes himself too seriously -- Burrell included.

As the details of Huff's story were recited back to him recently, Burrell just closed his eyes and nodded.

"Yeah, that's pretty much how it happened," he said. "I was looking for the shampoo. There wasn't any in the shower. Obviously, I didn't know his mom was in there."

Long pause.

"I don't know how the six-pack got in my hands."



(mercurynews.com)

Pat Burrell doubled twice, walked twice and hit a game-winning sac fly in the bottom of the 11th as the Giants edged the Cubs 4-3 on Monday.

Burrell didn't drive in runs with either hit, but he got a chance with the bases loaded and no outs in the top of the 11th and he hit a long fly to center to end it. After a poor July, he's opened August with a .391 average, five doubles, a homer and seven walks in 23 at-bats.



(rotoworld.com)

Aubrey Huff went 3-for-4 with a homer and three RBI as the Giants edged the Dodgers 6-5 on Friday.

The Dodgers scored three in the ninth with closer Brian Wilson unavailable, but the Giants held on while using four pitchers in the inning. Huff's homer was his 20th, and he also collected his 22nd double. With one day remaining, he's hitting .383 with eight homers and 23 RBI this month.



(rotoworld.com)

SAN FRANCISCO -- Aubrey Huff knew that he was close to career hit No. 1,500, but he didn't know that his first-inning single on Wednesday was the one until he looked at the video board in center field at AT&T Park.

"It's a nice accomplishment," Huff said after the game, before adding, "I like to count the thousands, not the five hundreds."

Huff finished the game going 2-for-3 with a walk and is hitting .310 with 19 homers and 62 RBIs this season.

When asked if he thinks he can get to 2,000 hits, Huff -- in the midst of his 11th season -- said, "Oh, sure. I hope so. If I play that long."



(mlb.com)

SAN FRANCISCO – He conjures up images of the guy lounging in the corner of a dark, dank hole-in-the-wall bar a few ticks from last call. The dude puffing on a cigarette when not tugging on Wild Turkey whiskey, marinating in Creedence Clearwater Revival emanating from the old-school jukebox.

The next morning, he rolls out of bed and coolly bangs out three hits.

"Damn," the Giants' Aubrey Huff said with wide eyes, "you pegged me.

"I'm pretty kickback, man," he added, hours before the Giants fell to Florida, 4-3, at AT&T Park on Monday. "I mean, I take my game serious, but I don't take myself serious."

True, Giants fans should take just about everything he says with a grain of salt. But be very mindful of what he does between the lines.
Because while Bustermania may be runnin' wild on the shores of McCovey Cove, Huff Daddy has been the most consistent, most dangerous, most reliable bat in the Giants' lineup from Day One this season.

No disrespect to Buster Posey, whose breakout rookie season has fans salivating over his catcher's gear (when, oh when are pitchers going to challenge his inside-out, opposite-field swing by pounding him with fastballs inside on the hands?). But it is Huff who has been the Giants' MVP thus far. And whom they can thank for where they sit in the standings – leading the National League wild-card race.

If Posey has been a revelation, Huff has been a revolution.

No wonder Bruce Bochy shuddered as if he just awoke from a vivid nightmare when asked where his club would be without Huff.

"I'd hate to think where we'd be without him," the Giants' manager said. "He changed our offense. And in the clubhouse, he's a loose, free-spirited talent that grinds out at-bats for us and can steal a base when you're not paying attention to him.

" Then to have that flexibility to put him in the outfield."

Huff is a throwback. A grinder. A guy who fully appreciates his lot in life.

Huff lost his father at age 6, when he was killed trying to take a gun away from a man who had just shot his wife in a workplace domestic dispute.

In baseball – Huff played countless hours of catch with his mom – he spent most of his first 10 big league seasons with Tampa Bay and Baltimore, "the bowels of the basement of the A.L. East," he mused. "Nobody gives a (hoot)." But in the Bay Area, he's developed a cult following.

This is what happens when you lead a team starved for an offensive presence – since Barry Bonds was shown the door in 2007 – in just about every offensive category.

Entering Monday, the left-handed Huff was batting .309 with 109 hits, 42 extra-base hits, 19 home runs, 60 RBIs, 49 walks, a .397 on-base percentage and a .549 slugging percentage.

Plus, his .314 average against southpaws was second in the N.L. among left-handed hitters (with at least 60 games played) to San Diego's Adrian Gonzalez (.316).

Then there's this – his .327 average since May 1 led the league.

"He should have been on the All-Star team," Bochy lamented. "He's a guy we kind of feed off."

Huff has claimed he's the best athlete on the team. Indeed, at Brewer High School in Fort Worth, Texas, he was known more for his basketball talent than for baseball.

That one-year, $3-million free-agent contract he signed Jan. 11 has been worth every penny for San Francisco.

"It's worked out a lot better than I would have ever imagined," he said. "It's no secret I love it here. It's no secret I'd like to stay here.
"This is the best place I've ever been my whole career."

Better than any saloon.



(sacbee.com)

Aubrey Huff went 3-for-5 with two homers and three RBI as the Giants topped the Diamondbacks 7-4 on Friday night.

Huff's first of two homers off Edwin Jackson snapped an ugly skid, as he had gone 11 straight games without driving in a run. He's still having an exceptional season, though. He has a chance to set new career highs in both homers and RBI with 19 and 57 so far. His high for homers was 34, established in 2003, and his high for RBI was 108, which he established with the Orioles two years ago.



(rotoworld.com)

Huff showing defensive reputation undeserved

Aubrey Huff and his assortment of gloves were kept busy throughout the weekend. Huff started in right field Sunday in the Giants' 4-3 loss to the Mets. It was his second straight game in right after playing left field Thursday and starting at first base Friday.

Huff said he doesn't care where he plays as long as his name is in the lineup. He sees it as a way to prolong his career.

"I like to keep it interesting," Huff joked, before adding that he always played multiple positions growing up. "I get kind of bored playing the same position. That's just the way I'm wired."

Huff came up to the big leagues as a third baseman in 2000 but often was a designated hitter during the first 10 seasons of his career.

"I've always had that DH label, but the guys who write that never played the game," Huff said. "Every new team I come to has me do extra work in spring training because teams believe what they read.

"I've kind of got a chip on my shoulder with the defensive reputation I've gotten."

With the additions of Buster Posey and Pat Burrell, Huff has been on the move for much of the season, starting 48 games at first base, 21 in right field and 18 in left. He has not made an error in the outfield, where he has provided his share of diving catches, including one Saturday night.

"If you can play the infield, you can play outfield. In the outfield, you just read fly balls, it's not that hard," Huff said. "I don't have a cannon, and I'm not going to throw a lot of guys out. I'm not going to track down the balls a lot of guys would, but I'll make the routine play."

Posey had some of his ugliest swings of the season in his first two at-bats but dumped an inside fastball softly into right in the sixth inning to extend his hitting streak to a career-high 12 games. Posey is the third Giants rookie in the San Francisco era to record two separate double-digit hit streaks in one season, joining Orlando Cepeda (1958) and Chili Davis (1982).

(foxsports.com)

Despite hitting .294/.380/.548 with 17 home runs and 54 RBIs on the on the offensive starved Giants team, Aubrey Huff will have to wait until the season is over in order to talk about an contract extension.

Andrew Baggarly of the San Jose Mercury News tweets, “Giants GM Brian Sabean said Aubrey Huff has “earned consideration” for a new contract. But no extension talks during the season.”

Huff, 33, signed a one-year contract last winter to join the Giants. Late last month, Huff said, “I would love to be back here.” He said he wouldn’t mind finishing his career in San Francisco.

Huff has been a welcome presence within the Giants organization, and it would be surprising if the team does not re-sign in the off-season.



(prorumors.com)

Aubrey Huff is having a pretty great first half for the Giants. He entered play Friday batting .298/.384/.556 with 17 homers and 54 RBI over 295 at-bats. Some might even say he's "All-Star worthy." In turn, Mychael Urban of CSNBayArea.com asked him if he would consider going to the game as an injury replacement. Apparently not.

"It's a sham," Huff told CSNBayArea.com by phone Friday morning from Washington, D.C. "To me, the All-Star Game is retarded."

Go ahead and call Huff inarticulate or politically incorrect if you want. That's fine. He deserves it. But believe it or not, that might not be the dumbest thing he said during this interview. He continued:

"It's so backward, it's a joke," said Huff, a 33-year-old veteran of 11 big-league seasons who has never been an All-Star. "I mean, if you want to make the game mean something and be so important with the World Series thing, why are you letting the fans pick the starters?

"If the game's that big of a deal, it should be the managers and players picking the team, because they really know who the best players are. Let the fans pick that last guy in the internet thing. That's enough. The way they have it now, though, with the fans picking the starters, it's either the most popular players or the guys on the big-market teams -- the cities with the most fans, like the Yankees and Boston and Philly -- just dominating the voting."

I'm not going to go over every starter one by one and evaluate whether they deserve to be there, because I honestly don't care. But I think we can all agree that this is probably the wrong year to make the argument that managers should have expanded authority on the complexion of the rosters.



(nbcsports.com)

MILWAUKEE — Earlier on the Giants' trip, Aubrey Huff made the crazy suggestion that Colorado Rockies ace Ubaldo Jimenez, the winningest pitcher in the big leagues, could be just what their struggling lineup needed.

Huff was right on the money.

So what does Huff think about today's matchup against Washington Nationals right-hander Stephen Strasburg, the most hyped pitching prospect, in, like, ever?

"Well, you don't read the newspaper when you're up there hitting," Huff said. "Take him like any other pitcher. See it and hit it."
Huff figures Strasburg can't be any better than Pedro Martinez in his heyday.

"When Pedro was Pedro, he was electric, ridiculous," Huff said. "Every pitch was a 10 out of 10. Everything he threw was an out pitch."
Giants manager Bruce Bochy said he probably would start Huff, Pat Burrell and Andres Torres in the outfield. Travis Ishikawa would return to first base. And Buster Posey would catch Matt Cain.



(mercurynews.com)

Aubrey Huff is 8-for-22 (.364) with four homers and eight RBI over his last five games.

Huff received a day off on Tuesday, but picked up right where he left off by hitting the second of three home runs by the Giants off Chris Narveson in the first inning Wednesday night. He's now batting .291 with 16 homers and 50 RBI, qualifying as one of the best fantasy bargains of the year. He currently ranks seventh in the National League with a .545 slugging percentage and 926 OPS.



(rotoworld.com)

MILWAUKEE -- True to his word, manager Bruce Bochy gave Aubrey Huff a break by leaving the first baseman-outfielder out of Tuesday night's lineup against the Milwaukee Brewers.

It was difficult for Bochy to rest Huff, the Giants' most productive hitter. Huff was available to pinch-hit, but he took full advantage of his intended day off by skipping pregame stretching and batting practice, with Bochy's blessing.

Huff entered Tuesday with 23 RBIs since June 10, tied for second in the National League in that span with Milwaukee's Corey Hart and Cincinnati's Joey Votto. David Wright of the Mets has 25.

Bochy also hoped to refrain from using left-hander Dan Runzler, who had appeared in each of the previous three games.



(mlb.com)

MILWAUKEE Aubrey Huff has a nice little All-Star break planned to the Santa Cruz boardwalk with his wife and 2-year-old son. He doesn't expect to be a late injury replacement to the NL All-Star team, even though he has the numbers to go for the first time.

"Man, it doesn't matter," Huff said. "I've had the numbers before."

In 2003, Huff was hitting .304 with 17 home runs, 50 RBIs and an AL-best 31 doubles at the break for Tampa Bay. The team's representative was closer Lance Carter, who had a 4.17 ERA.

In 2008, Huff had a .284 average and ranked eighth in the AL in both home runs (18) and RBIs (59) for Baltimore. The Orioles representative was closer George Sherrill, who had a 4.08 ERA.

"When you play on last-place teams, they take one player, and they'll take someone to fill a need," Huff said. "It would be awesome to go. It wouldn't feel like a gimme, throw-in type of vote. But there's obviously a lot of politics involved, a lot of popularity. That's the way it's gone my whole career."

After his three-hit afternoon led the Giants to a victory over the Brewers on Monday, Huff has a .294 average with a team-high 15 home runs and 49 RBIs numbers that are nearly identical to All-Stars Ryan Braun and Adrian Gonzalez.

Yes, the Giants are sending their closer, instead. But at least Brian Wilson's 2.04 ERA is shinier.



(foxsports.com)

MILWAUKEE -- Aubrey Huff requested and received Tuesday off from manager Bruce Bochy. After what he has done in the past 48 hours, not to mention all season, Huff deserves a break.

Huff went 3-for-4, scored a run and contributed a two-run single to a four-run seventh inning Monday that lifted the Giants to a 6-1 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers in the opener of a four-game series.

It marked the second consecutive day in which Huff did virtually everything he could to try to help the Giants win. In Sunday's haunting 4-3, 15-inning loss, Huff obliterated Colorado second baseman Jonathan Herrera with a clean yet devastating takeout slide that enabled San Francisco to score the third and tying run in the eighth inning. He also lined a leadoff triple in the 13th inning but was stranded.
Huff, one of five Giants to play that entire game, delivered all the effort he could summon Monday.

"The whole game I was running on fumes," said Huff, who shares the team lead for games played (80) with Pablo Sandoval. "If I don't get [Tuesday] off, I'll be worthless until the All-Star break. I never felt that tired in a game in my life. By the fifth inning I was basically spent. Those 5 1/2 hours [Sunday] got to me."

A long-shot candidate to join the National League All-Star team as a substitute if a selectee is injured, Huff hiked his batting average to .294 and leads the Giants in home runs (15), RBIs (49), slugging percentage (.536) and on-base percentage (.380). He again demonstrated his production skills when it counted most against the Brewers.

With the score tied, 1-1, Buster Posey and Travis Ishikawa opened the Giants' big seventh by singling off Kameron Loe (0-1), who entered the game with a 0.93 ERA in 15 appearances. Pinch-hitter Edgar Renteria popped up a sacrifice-bunt attempt before Andres Torres walked on four pitches to load the bases.

Freddy Sanchez rapped a potential double-play grounder to shortstop Alcides Escobar, who fumbled the ball for a run-scoring error. Zach Braddock relieved Loe and yielded Huff's hit, which scored Ishikawa and Torres. Sanchez moved to third on Pat Burrell's fly to center and scored on a wild pitch.

Huff found a worthy adversary in Braddock, a hard-throwing rookie left-hander. Huff nearly struck out on a 2-2 slider on what he called a "panic swing" before lining his opposite-field single to left.

"He just pumped two heaters right by me, and I'm a pretty good fastball hitter," Huff said. "... I got lucky enough to just flip one off to the left."

None of this would have unfolded had Escobar cleanly handled Sanchez's grounder.

"I looked at the runner," Escobar said, acknowledging his mistake. "I think I had a chance for a double play."

Said Bochy, "We got a break, which we really haven't had a lot of."

Another opposite-field blow, Posey's third home run of the season, concluded the scoring in the eighth. As was the case with Huff, Posey's fortunes during his at-bat changed markedly from one swing to the next. Posey flailed at David Riske's 1-1 pitch and felt a locking sensation in his left wrist, which has been troubled by occasional inflammation since last year. Posey remained in the game and drove Riske's next delivery into the right-field seats.

The Giants' third victory in 13 games enabled them to gain a half-game on idle National League West-leading San Diego. San Francisco remained in fourth place, seven games behind the Padres.

"Pat Burrell told me before the game, 'Let's make up one game a week.' It makes sense," Huff related. "That way it doesn't seem so overwhelming."

To accomplish that comeback, the Giants will need continued improvement from Jonathan Sanchez (7-6), who didn't win his seventh game last year until Sept. 23. The left-hander lasted six innings and allowed Milwaukee's lone run despite surrendering five hits, walking six and flinging three wild pitches. The Brewers stranded nine runners against Sanchez, including five in scoring position.

Sanchez's poor control incensed Bochy, who typically visits pitchers only when he removes them. But he stalked to the mound to deliver a harsh fourth-inning message to Sanchez, who had fallen behind 1-0 on opposing pitcher Dave Bush after issuing his fifth walk.

"Obviously, [it] was time for a talk," Bochy said, declining to elaborate.

"He just went out there to give me a breather," Sanchez said.

Posey was equally nonchalant about Bochy's lecture.

"I would say it was encouraging," he said with a straight face. "It wasn't unpleasant."

But it was necessary, because Sanchez had lively stuff and was on the brink of wasting it.

"It's weird, because he won't locate for a stretch, and then he'll throw three pitches in a row right where he wants to throw them," Brewers right fielder Corey Hart said. "You can do that when you throw hard. He's got the kind of stuff where he could throw a no-hitter any day."



(mlb.com)

Aubrey Huff provided all the offense for the Giants on Friday night, hitting a solo homer and two-run jack in a 6-3 loss to the Rockies.

After cooling off toward the end of June, Huff is starting July with a bang. He now has 14 homers and 45 RBI and we don't think it's a fluke. Remember, when he last got regular at-bats in Baltimore in 2008, Huff hit 32 homers while hitting .304.



(rotoworld.com)

Aubrey Huff, a 2008 silver slugger, ended his 2009 season hitting .241 after being traded from the faltering Baltimore Orioles to the Detroit Tigers.  He was abysmal with the Tigers where he hit below the Mendoza line (.189 ). Seeming to be all but done with baseball, the Giants signed Huff in January to a 1 year deal with hopes that they would get the 2008 Huff and not the 2009 Puff.  Now the 2008 silver slugger winner is appearing to have recoveredfrom whatever plagued him in his terrible 2009.  Currently, Huff is hitting .304, which is tops on the Giants (qualified players for this stat are averaging 3.1 AB per team game) and is ranked 6th in the NL in OBP (.394), 9 th in the NL in OPS (.931), and 10 th in the NL in SLG (.538). 

Huff is on pace to be a .300/90 player.  If Freddy Sanchez can stay healthy and continue to hit above .300 and Andres Torres can limit his strike outs (17/23, BB to K ratio) and still continue to hit .285, Huff just may hit the 100 RBI mark.  The Giants have a good chance of making a run for the pennant in the NL West, but that will also depend on whether they can continue to hit .260 as a team.  If they continue their fall at the plate that we have seen over the past week where they have only hit .214 as a team (Huff has hit .333 over the same span), their pennant hopes could quickly diminish.  The Giants are relying on the resurgence of Pablo Sandoval and the continued production of recent contract purchase Pat Burrell who is hitting .319 for the Giants since being picked up.



(mlbcenter.com)

So how do I explain this one?

I don't. If I tried, I'd be pulling an answer out of thin air, and you'd know it. Huff's latest resurgence is even more inexplicable than his first one two years ago, which, considering it came five years after he last played at an All-Star level, made about as much sense as the old Expos logo.

It's an M, right?

M as in moot, maybe, which is also the case for Huff. The cause doesn't matter nearly as much as the effect. Yes, the guy has identity issues. Just when you think he's one type of player, he becomes something else entirely -- until he has you convinced of that, in which case he switches back. But he has adhered to at least one standard throughout his career: Whenever he goes off like this, he does so for an entire summer.

To date, Huff's .949 OPS would rank as the highest of his career -- higher than that 2008 season with the Orioles, higher than anything he did as a bottom-feeding Devil Ray. His previous bests came in 2003 and 2008, when he did about what he has done this season, getting off to an assuming start in April before taking off in May in June.

In 2003, he hit .318 with 30 homers and a .939 OPS after April 30. In 2008, he hit .313 with 27 homers and a .930 OPS after April 30. So far this year, he's batting .338 with 10 homers and a 1.050 OPS since April 30.

I don't know about you, but I'm liking his chances for a third .300-hitting, 30-homer season, which would obviously make him a must-start in Fantasy. Yet he's starting in only 72 percent of leagues. I realize he let everyone down last year. I realize he has only one impact Fantasy season since 2004. But if history is any indication, he's about to have No. 2.

Sitting him is as inexplicable as he is.



(cbssports.com)

Aubrey Huff has had such a good time as a Giant, he doesn't want it to end.

"I would love to be back here," Huff said when asked about 2011.

"I was talking with Pat Burrell, saying, 'Wouldn't it be a kick if we could finish our careers here?' We're really enjoying it. I know I am. I'd love to be back. But it's up to the front office. I've just got to go out and play my game and see what happens."

Huff, 33, has been a Giant for only 67 games, but it's enough of a sample size to convince him he wants to stay. The Giants, who signed him for $3 million, have appreciated his feats and flexibility.

He has statistics comparable to those of Albert Pujols. Huff tops Pujols in average (.311-.302), slugging percentage (.549-.540), doubles (16-15) and triples (2-0) and trails in homers (15-12). The biggest difference was walks (53-35 in favor of Pujols), because of Pujols' 21 intentional passes (two for Huff).

"I think I get pitched to more than he does. Let's be honest," Huff said.

One reason for Huff's success might be his weight loss. He said he's 215 pounds and ended last year 230.

"And, obviously, a lot has to do with being happy," said Huff, who has played most of his career on losing teams. "This is the first time in a long time I've actually been happy playing baseball. I have a chance to go out there every day and win."



(sfgate.com)

Aubrey Huff homered again and scored three runs as the Giants beat the Blue Jays 9-6 on Sunday.

Huff hit a solo homer in the third inning and would also come around to score on a single and a walk. The homer is Huff's 12th of the season, six of which have come in June. Since Huff has had some rather impressive years in the past, he's not necessarily someone that should be written off and considered a sell-high candidate.



(rotoworld.com)

SAN FRANCISCO -- Aubrey Huff knew what he was getting himself into when he signed to play half his games at AT&T Park, a place where left-handed power hitters -- all except one -- have gone to die, but he did it anyway.

"It's the only choice I had," the Giants' cleanup hitter said. "It was mid-January and I had no other offers, so I took it. I didn't have a choice, but I'm glad it happened. I'm having a great time here."

And, perhaps most improbably, he's hitting home runs. Huff hit two homers on Sunday, giving him 10 for the season, and eight so far this year at AT&T Park. That may not seem like much, until you consider the park's history.

In the 10-plus seasons the Giants have played at their picturesque waterfront ballpark, the only left-handed hitter to ever hit more than 10 homers in a season at AT&T Park has been Barry Bonds. J.T. Snow hit 10 in 2000, the park's inaugural season, and switch-hitter Pablo Sandoval hit nine from the left side at home last year.

Otherwise, it's been one long string of lefties flailing away and settling for doubles, or worse, like 400-foot flyouts into the right-center-field gap.

Giants left-handed hitters have hit 323 homers at AT&T Park and 408 on the road. If you subtract Bonds from that equation, the other Giants lefties have 163 homers at home and 251 on the road. Opposing lefties have hit 202 homers at AT&T Park and 311 against the Giants at other parks.

The ballpark, originally known as Pac Bell Park, has been so tough on left-handed power hitters that it pushed at least one of them to seek therapy. Armando Rios told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2002, after he'd been traded to the Pirates, that the ballpark was deeply in his head.

"I go to any park and I feel 6-foot-3 and 240 pounds and I can fly," Rios said at the time. "When I'm home I feel 5-feet-2 and everyone's on top of me. I feel there are 50 guys on the field. I've tried every different stance, everything I can to get a hit. I don't know. It's just a ballpark.

"I feel like I can't get a hit there. I've talked to the guys and joked that I've got to make a pact with Pac Bell. I've got to come and walk around and talk to the park. I don't know what else I'm going to do."

Huff said he was starting to get those same feelings in his first month in San Francisco. He said he tried to swing early to pull the ball down the line, which is just 309 feet. He said he got in bad habits trying to alter his swing to fit the ballpark.

"I just gave up," he said. "I said 'I'm going to try and hit .300 this year. I don't care if I hit five homers. I'm going to try to drive in some runs.' And that's when it started happening. Go figure."

Huff didn't hit a ball over the fence at AT&T Park until April 27. (He had one inside-the-park homer on April 14.) Since then, he's hit six more. His two homers on Sunday afternoon were both towering shots to the deepest part of the park in right-center, a spot that only Bonds has reached consistently.

Huff now has his average up to .303, and he's joined in the 10-homer club by Juan Uribe. The Giants have also gotten a boost lately from Freddy Sanchez (.333 since coming off the DL May 19), Buster Posey (.368 since coming up from the minors two weeks ago) and Pat Burrell (.375 since the Giants plucked him from the scrap heap two weeks ago). Put them together and the Giants' mostly-inept offense is looking passable.

"It's like three trades without having to do anything," Huff said. "Those three guys have really turned around the offense."

What's more, Huff is sending a message to other free agents who might have shied away from AT&T Park because of its reputation.

"If you don't want to come here and play and hit for this pitching staff we have," he said, "then you don't want to win."



(mlb.fanhouse.com)

Huff is happy he's put losing ways behind him.

The Baltimore Orioles have the worst record in baseball, they've lost 17 of their past 19 games, and the ax already fell on manager Dave Trembley.

Aubrey Huff knows this situation all too well. The Orioles come to town today, and Huff will face his former club for the first time since they traded him to the Detroit Tigers last August.

"They're having a tough year, but you can't take 'em lightly, man," Huff said. "You never know what's going to happen."

The same was true for Huff's free agency last winter. The Giants were the only team to offer him a major league contract, and he's ecstatic at how it's turned out.

"I'm really enjoying my time here," he said. "It's a great coaching staff, a great team and fans and a beautiful ballpark. Tell me you don't want to come here with this starting staff and want to win."

Huff hasn't played a full season for a winning team in his 11-year career.

"The last couple years, you really start getting so down about it," said Huff, who broke in with Tampa Bay. "You start thinking you'd rather retire than go through that. Here we've got a great pitching staff and a chance to win every day. I wouldn't rather be anyplace in baseball than right here."



(mercurynews.com)

A couple of weeks ago, no one - including the Giants - could have imagined an outfield alignment with Pat Burrell in left and Aubrey Huff in right, especially in home games.

But there it was Saturday night, a Burrell-Andres Torres-Huff outfield. Manager Bruce Bochy played Huff three times in right on the most recent trip, but Saturday was Huff's debut in front of the quirky and uneven 24-foot brick wall along the shores of McCovey Cove.

"He's done it in the past," Bochy said. "Sure, this is a tough right field, but he'll be fine."

Huff has played more career games in right (241) than left (19, including 11 this year). But until last week, he hadn't been a right fielder since he was with the Astros at the end of the 2006 season.

Opening the season at first base, Huff moved to left when Buster Posey arrived and is playing right, now that Burrell is aboard. "He's been talking about going to short," Bochy said, "but that's not going to happen."

Huff made two routine catches, then moved to left in the eighth inning, replaced in right by Nate Schierholtz.

As for Burrell, who was a designated hitter with Tampa Bay before joining the Giants, Bochy said, "He has a pretty good arm, gets rid of the ball quick, charges the ball well. What he can lack in range, he makes up in some other things. He's been working hard out there."



(sfgate.com)

Aubrey Huff will make his first start of the season in left field against the Nationals on Tuesday night.

The Giants haven't scored a run in 20 innings, so they are trying something new. Pablo Sandoval will make his second start of the year at first base, while Juan Uribe will start at third base. Andres Torres will lead off and play right field, pushing Nate Schierholtz and John Bowker are both on the bench. Edgar Renteria is the new No. 2 hitter.



(rotoworld.com)

Giants 1B Aubrey Huff went 1 for 6 in Tuesday's game against the Padres in San Diego. He is just 4 for 23 (.174) over his last six games.






(fantasysp.com)

Aubrey Huff says he's open to playing left field for the Giants so that prospect Buster Posey can play first base.

"If I'm told to go out to left field, I'll do it," Huff said.

"I've played outfield before. I played (right field) for a whole season in Tampa and played fairly well out there. It's not something I'm not comfortable with. I definitely enjoyed my time out there. I'm not the kind of guy who has to be at one certain position every day. Whatever they want. I'll play third, first, left, right, DH."



(realgmbaseball.com)

Aubrey Huff said he's open to playing left field if the Giants decide to promote Buster Posey to play first base.

"If I'm told to go out to left field, I'll do it," Huff said. "I've played outfield before. I played (right field) for a whole season in Tampa and played fairly well out there. It's not something I'm not comfortable with. I definitely enjoyed my time out there. I'm not the kind of guy who has to be at one certain position every day. Whatever they want. I'll play third, first, left, right, DH."

Huff smiled and added, "It would ruin my Gold Glove opportunity at first."

The Giants' left fielder, Mark DeRosa, has missed six games with a left wrist injury, and it's still possible he could go on the disabled list and require in-season surgery. On Saturday, he took some swings, and he will take more today.

Another way Huff could move to left: With second baseman Freddy Sanchez and shortstop Edgar Renteria coming off the DL soon, Juan Uribe could move to third and Pablo Sandoval to first.

If Posey's brought up to play first, Huff is confident it'll work.

"If you could catch, you could pretty much play first," Huff said. "Just watching him move around in spring training, to me, he's got the perfect catcher's body: strong legs, stocky, quick feet. You can definitely tell he can play the infield."



(sfgate.com)

It might be time for all the haters - fans, press and scouts alike - to admit all the hullabaloo over Aubrey Huff's defense at first base was wasted breath.

Huff is doing fine at the position, maybe better than fine. He is picking balls out of the dirt, snaring tough grounders, throwing well and making tough catches. He had one Saturday, overcoming a swirling wind to catch a difficult pop foul by Jason Bay to end the ninth.

An inning earlier, Huff smartly raced to cover second base as both middle infielders chased Henry Blanco's Texas League single to center, preventing Blanco from taking the extra base. That might have saved a run, because Fernando Tatis then doubled.

Huff has committed one error in 29 games. His only deficiency appears to be his range.

In so many words Sunday, Huff said, "I told you so."

"This is nothing new for me. I have to do this everywhere I go," he said. "I have to answer questions in spring training that I can't play defense. I have to prove myself again, and here you are a month later (praising me). It's like this all the time. When I played for Baltimore every day at first base (last season), I made four errors the whole year."

Huff laughed when a reporter asked about all the defensive work he did during the spring.

"Every spring training I have all the coaches put me in the extra group working on defense because they believe what they read," he said. "All you guys write me off as a bad defensive guy and they read it and say, 'OK, we've got to get him out there and work him hard.' "



(sfgate.com)

MIAMI — Aubrey Huff hit a two-run single to break a tie in the 12th inning Tuesday night, and the San Francisco Giants earned a seesaw victory over the Florida Marlins 9-6.

The Giants' Aaron Rowand hit a two-out solo homer in the ninth against Leo Nunez to tie the game. Dan Uggla's three-run homer with two out in the eighth off Sergio Romo gave the Marlins a 6-5 lead.

Unbeaten Giants ace Tim Lincecum had 13 strikeouts in seven innings and left with a 5-3 lead, but he was denied his fifth win of the season when Florida rallied.

Lincecum was up 3-0 before Hanley Ramirez hit a three-run homer in the sixth. Lincecum's ERA soared to 1.70, but aside from the homer he was in top form, allowing only five hits and one walk.



(ap.com)

SAN FRANCISCO -- Aubrey Huff finally hit his first home run as a member of the Giants, but he had to work for it.

Huff hit his first career inside-the-park home run Wednesday, circling the bases to lead off the second inning against Pittsburgh right-hander Charlie Morton. Huff's feat opened the scoring in San Francisco's 6-0 victory.

"When I hit it, I thought it was gone anyway," Huff said. "In most parks it is. I saw it bounce off the wall and as soon as I rounded first I saw it took an amazing hop and I thought, 'Oh boy, here we go.' "

Huff hit a first-pitch drive that struck the inner portion of the middle archway among the three in the right-center-field wall. The ball caromed away from Pirates right fielder Garrett Jones and skipped into right field.

"Most of the balls are going to go off to the left because of the way it is slanted," Jones said of the wall. "It hit kind of that indentation in the corner and kicked hard to the right. There's nothing you can really do about that. It's just one of those freak plays."

By then, Huff was rounding second base at full speed. He slid home without drawing a throw, indicating that he didn't need to slide.

But at that point, Huff didn't know any better. All he knew was that Mark DeRosa, the on-deck batter, was practically spread-eagled on the grass, signaling Huff to slide.

"I was already gassed," said Huff, who has hit 203 traditional home runs. "So I didn't need that. ... I didn't even know where I was at that point. If he told me to slide, I'm sliding."

Pablo Sandoval playfully fanned Huff with a towel shortly after he returned to the dugout.

"I don't remember," Huff dryly said of Sandoval's service. "I blacked out."

Many a clout that would be a home run elsewhere has ended up as an extra-base hit or even an out in right-center at AT&T Park, where the 421-foot marker mocks batters. Huff hit one such ball on Monday when he tripled against Pittsburgh.

"Everybody in Spring Training told me, 'You'll see, you'll see,' " Huff said. "I said, 'Come on, if you get it, it's gonna go.'"

Huff actually flirted with two more homers on Wednesday. He flied out to the center-field warning track in the third inning and doubled high off the right-center-field wall in the sixth inning.

"I've never had a three-home run game," Huff said. "I'm going to go ahead and chalk up today as a three-home run game in my mind."

Though Huff's double nearly duplicated the path of his inside-the-parker, he didn't try to extend his trip past second base.

"I don't think he could have made it around again," Giants manager Bruce Bochy jokingly said.

Huff's round-tripper was the fourth regular-season inside-the-park homer at AT&T Park since it opened in 2000 and fifth overall, including the one hit by Seattle's Ichiro Suzuki in the 2007 All-Star Game.

"It makes it even more amazing what Barry Bonds did here," Huff said. "Hitting 73 homers here [Bonds' record single-season total in 2001] is just mind-boggling."



(mlb.com)

The Yankees and Red Sox will meet tonight to open the 2010 season. Of course they will. Do you really think Bud Selig pulled the two teams out of a hat? He and his TV pals wanted these Eastern Seaboard powers to initiate the 2,430-game regular season and help divert attention from the Final Four, the NFL draft countdown and all things Tiger Woods.

And why not? The Yankees and Red Sox – who pay all that money, win all those games and brag about all those pennant races – are Selig’s biggest and baddest commodities. That’s just the way it is.

Not that everyone’s cool with that. Imagine what it feels like to be the Orioles, the Blue Jays or, until 2008, the Rays, the division’s also-rans whose destiny is to play in the shadow of Boston and the Bronx.

New Giants first baseman Aubrey Huff was there the past decade and is elated to escape.

“When you think American League East, you think Yankees-Red Sox and going against those enormous payrolls,” Huff said. “I’ve done that my whole career, playing on lower-payroll teams in that division. Having seen it from that side, it gets pretty annoying, pretty monotonous, having to compete with that much money.”

Huff broke into the majors in 2000 with Tampa Bay, where he played into the 2006 season. He was in Baltimore from 2007 to 2009. Aside from a couple of quick stops in Houston and Detroit, he has been an AL East lifer.

He loved playing the Yankees and Red Sox, especially when thousands of their followers visited Tropicana Field and Camden Yards – “the biggest games I’ve ever played,” he said – and no Orioles fan will forget his home run off boisterous Joba Chamberlain in May. Tired of the New York pitcher’s gestures (maybe tired of the Yankees altogether), Huff mocked Chamberlain by pumping his fist and shouting around first base and again at the plate.

“That was fun,” said Huff, smiling. “I like to have fun, man.”

Now he’s thankful to be in the up-for-grabs National League West, where a payroll three times the size of the Padres’ isn’t required to succeed.

“You’ve got to give it to them. They go out and spend the money and win,” Huff said of the Yankees and Red Sox. “That’s what their fans ask them to do, and that’s what they do. If you’re going to get to the playoffs in that division, you have to do what Tampa Bay did (in 2008). You have to have homegrown talent that all comes together at the same time, and you need a little magic on your side.”

It’s more of the same this year. The Yankees (additions: Javier Vazquez, Curtis Granderson, Nick Johnson, Randy Winn) and Red Sox (John Lackey, Mike Cameron, Adrian Beltre, Marco Scutaro) are popular picks to finish 1-2 or 2-1, though the Rays believe they’ll contend again by avoiding another 9-14 April and getting big years from a young rotation and new closer (Rafael Soriano).

The Orioles, hoping to become the next Rays, have promising youth and some new old-timers (Kevin Millwood, Garrett Atkins and Miguel Tejada, again), and the Blue Jays are trying to survive without their only sure thing, Roy Halladay.

Sometimes it’s good to be in the NL West.



(football-news-update.com)

Aubrey Huff was 2-for-4 with an RBI in a 3-0 win over the Astros on Tuesday night.

Huff's big spring brought hope that he would bounce back from last season's disappointing .241 average and 15 homers in 150 games. That remains to be seen, although San Francisco's new cleanup hitter did his part in Tuesday's quick pitcher's duel.



(rotoworld.com)

Giants catcher Bengie Molina has an official MLB blog and provided some pretty interesting material about Friday’s team charity fundraiser.

The best: “Aubrey Huff, made a colorful first impression with his purple plaid pants.” And the catcher provided this awesome photo:
















(newsblogs.com)

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- On Saturday at Scottsdale Stadium against the Reds, Aubrey Huff dove toward the first-base line to snare Juan Francisco's sharp grounder and turned it into a double play with a nifty throw to second base.

"You sound surprised," Huff said with a wry grin on Monday morning, hours before he started again at first base for the Giants in their home Cactus League game against the Rangers.

The surprise might have been in the execution, not the elocution. Giants manager Bruce Bochy called it the best defensive play he'd seen all spring.

"Oh, no doubt, it sure was," Huff said, again in dead-pan fashion. "I can't remember seeing one better."

Huff said he's growing tired of reporters focusing on his defense this spring. But the focus is not going to be on his offense.

"If it wasn't for hitting, I wouldn't play baseball," he said. "I take pride in proving people wrong about playing defense, but hitting is my bread and butter."

No doubt. Including an RBI single in the first inning on Monday, he's hitting .394 with three homers and 10 RBIs in 12 games.

But Huff's defense became an issue when two plays cost Tim Lincecum a barrel of unearned runs in the right-hander's first two starts of the spring. On March 3 against the Mariners in Peoria, Ariz., a grounder kicked off Huff's glove in the first inning, and Lincecum never recovered.

On March 11 at home, again against Seattle, in the third inning, Eric Byrnes beat out a single to deep short when Huff couldn't pick a throw in the dirt from Edgar Renteria. Jose Lopez motored home and stopped dead midway down the third-base line. But when Huff's throw skipped away from catcher Bengie Molina, Lopez scored and Byrnes went to second. Ryan Langerhans singled home Byrnes.

Lincecum clearly appeared peeved after the error by Huff, who is settling in at first base after playing just 168 of his 436 games during the past three years in the American League at that position. Huff was a designated hitter 220 times for the Orioles and Tigers.

"You can see frustration in my face once in a while out there, but I had to go with it, that's part of the game," Lincecum said that day. "You have to roll with the punches and prepare for the next batter. That's how you deal with any game. You have to put stuff in the past."

Todd Wellemeyer, who is vying for the fifth spot in the Giants' rotation, clearly wasn't frustrated on Saturday when Huff turned in his stellar play. Huff corralled the grounder, touched his glove on first base and threw a strike to Renteria, who applied the tag. The Giants won, 6-0, as Wellemeyer tossed five shutout innings.

"That's just a reaction play, you can't practice that," the 33-year-old Huff said. "You reach for it and hopefully it hits the glove. You hop up and try to make a good throw. It all worked out."

Huff said that he's having no difficulties adjusting to regular play at first base. He's started 295 of his 925 big league games for Tampa Bay, Houston, Baltimore and Detroit at that sack during his nine-year career, including 98 in 2008 for the Orioles. Only one year, 2006 with the Astros, did he play solely in the National League without the benefit of the DH.

"I got that label as a bad defensive player when I was at third base," said Huff, who's started 344 games at third in his career. "I moved to first base, and I was just fine. That's just something that's stays with me my whole career. Guys who never have played the game before are writing about it and they don't know any better. People believe what they read. That's all there is to it, man."

The Giants signed Huff to a one-year, $3 million contract as a free agent this past offseason because they wanted his bat in the lineup. He's a .283 lifetime hitter with 203 homers and 752 RBIs. Two years ago he had one of his best seasons with the O's, amassing 32 homers and 108 RBIs.

The Giants are happy with Huff batting cleanup, and they're trying to fit him in at first. Just to punctuate Huff's point, he has a .993 fielding percentage at first base and a .947 field percentage at third.

"I've always played first base just fine," Huff said. "This is not an issue, you guys are making it an issue. The only issue is that I have to answer these questions every day. It's getting kind of old."



(mlb.com)

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Aubrey Huff has a thing for "Transformers." Last year, when the Detroit Tigers' wives assembled charitable gift baskets filled with their husbands' favorites, Huff's goodies included a Megatron action figure and a DVD of the movie.

His fan worship for the old cartoon show is no passing fancy — otherwise he wouldn't have tattooed giant Autobot and Decepticon logos on either side of his upper back.

And now that the former American League designated hitter is wearing a Giants uniform and a first baseman's mitt, he's determined to prove that he's more than meets the eye, too.

"When you're a DH, you get labeled by people who've never played the game," said the 33-year-old, who won a Silver Slugger award in 2008. "It's hard to shake. People believe what they read, unfortunately, but I'll play every day and prove that I'm not bad over there."

Although it's vital that the Giants support their talented pitching staff, they do not anticipate having an above-average defensive infield. Their one highly skilled glove man from last year, Travis Ishikawa, didn't hit enough on the road to retain a starting job.

According to the UZR/150, a formula that determines the number of runs a fielder saves or costs his team, Ishikawa was the best everyday defensive first baseman in the majors last season. Huff graded slightly below average.

But Huff has his believers. Baltimore Orioles broadcaster Dave Johnson watched Huff play 93 games at first base last season and said he wasn't a liability.

"You don't really notice him," said Johnson, in Scotts- dale to watch his son, Steven, whom the Giants took in the Rule 5 draft. "He made the plays he was supposed to make. He did fine over there."

Huff's defense received another vote of confidence from an even more trusted source.

"He looks pretty good to me," said Giants special assistant and former Gold Glove winner J.T. Snow. "We were doing a drill to pick balls out of the dirt, and he might have missed one. He's played it before, so he knows how to handle it."

That's no small matter to Snow. In previous years, the front office asked him to convert outfielders Daniel Ortmeier and John Bowker to first base. Those results weren't so pretty.

"Bunt plays, pickoffs "... the game moves pretty fast when you're on the infield for the first time," Snow said. "None of that is new to Aubrey. And I think he's a pretty honest guy. He said he'll do the best job he can. He's not expecting to win a Gold Glove."

Huff's presence doesn't necessarily spell doom for Ishikawa, who received good news Saturday when an MRI exam showed partially torn ligaments in his foot are healing well and won't require surgery.

Ishikawa hopes to be out of his walking boot in a week and back to unrestricted duty soon after that.

Giants manager Bruce Bochy said Ishikawa remains "very much in the mix" for a roster spot. "Ishi has shown he can do some things to help you win a ballgame, whether it's defense or hitting a ball out of the ballpark."

It would seem Bochy plans to use Ishikawa often as a late-inning defensive replacement. The manager also said he plans to get Huff some work in the outfield, where he hasn't played a big league inning since 2006 with the Houston Astros.

"Just to make sure we have that option," Bochy said.

Huff is willing to transform himself as needed.

"I won't lie to you, I'm not the rangiest guy," he said. "I mean, it's not like I won't dive for a ball. I'll make the routine play and occasionally make the really good play. That's all you can ask for."



(mercurynews.com)

1. If you could trade places for one day with anyone in baseball, who would it be?
Aubrey Huff: For one day. If I was single or married?

Touching Base: It’s your choice! You get to call the rules on this.
AH: If I was single it would be Derek Jeter, if I was married, I would be Albert Pujols.

2. What is your favorite piece of baseball equipment?
AH: My bat.

TB: What kind of bat do you use?
AH: Carolina Club, 243.

TB: How did you come to that one?
AH: I used it, got a couple of hits with it, homered. I’d been skipping around bats when I was a young player - bat to bat to bat. I had a good game with that one, good week with it, and I’ve swung it ever since. Never stopped.

3. Have you ever played as yourself in a video game?
AH: Oh, hell yeah. Who hasn’t?

TB: Some guys don’t.
AH: I haven’t played a video game in forever, but when they started coming out, the last time I played was when I was with Baltimore. I was the Orioles, and I remember putting it on easy mode just so I could hit jacks. Kind of simulated a season one year to see how I’d done, and it had me at like .390 with 59 homers and 160 RBI, and I was like, “OK, that’d be awesome.”

4. Who’s an athlete in another sport you’d like to see try his hand at baseball?
AH: For some reason, I could see Drew Brees being a good pitcher. I’d like to see him off a mound, I bet he’d have a good arm.

TB: The scouts would probably get on him about being too small. That’s what they said about him in football.
AH: Oh, really? Well, look at Lincecum. He’s small too.

TB: Not the disadvantage they might have you think.
AH: No, it’s stupid.

5. What’s your favorite baseball movie?
AH: Probably Major League. Just because it’s funny.

6. Do you have any expert travel advice?
AH: Mail your bags, so you don’t have to bring your bag on the plane.

7. Who was your favorite athlete growing up?
AH: Nolan Ryan.

TB: And you wound up a hitter.
AH: I know! How about that? Had to do something. That’s the way it happened.

8. What is one thing that you have not done in your career that you’d like to accomplish before it’s over, other than win a World Series?
AH: Well, yeah, that’s a pretty obvious one. Batting title would be cool.

9. Complete this sentence: I am the only player in Major League Baseball…
AH: …with Transformers tattoos? I guess.

TB: Which Transformers?
AH: I just got the insignia on my back. Good guy-bad guy.

TB: Autobots, Decepticons. The old school?
AH: Yeah, the old school.

TB: I couldn’t bring myself to see the movie. I felt like it would ruin the cartoon.
AH: No, it didn’t. It didn’t. It actually enhanced the experience.

TB: How about the sequel?
AH: Wasn’t as good as the first one, but still worth watching if you’re a fan.



(nydailynews.com)

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Aubrey Huff has a thing for "Transformers." Last year, when the Detroit Tigers' wives assembled charitable gift baskets filled with their husbands' favorites, Huff's goodies included a Megatron action figure and a DVD of the movie.

His fan worship for the old cartoon show is no passing fancy — otherwise he wouldn't have tattooed giant Autobot and Decepticon logos on either side of his upper back.

And now that the former American League designated hitter is wearing a Giants uniform and a first baseman's mitt, he's determined to prove that he's more than meets the eye, too.

"When you're a DH, you get labeled by people who've never played the game," said the 33-year-old, who won a Silver Slugger award in 2008. "It's hard to shake. People believe what they read, unfortunately, but I'll play every day and prove that I'm not bad over there."

Although it's vital that the Giants support their talented pitching staff, they do not anticipate having an above-average defensive infield. Their one highly skilled glove man from last year, Travis Ishikawa, didn't hit enough on the road to retain a starting job.

According to the UZR/150, a formula that determines the number of runs a fielder saves or costs his team, Ishikawa was the best everyday defensive first baseman in the majors last season. Huff graded slightly below average.

But Huff has his believers. Baltimore Orioles broadcaster Dave Johnson watched Huff play 93 games at first base last season and said he wasn't a liability.

"You don't really notice him," said Johnson, in Scotts- dale to watch his son, Steven, whom the Giants took in the Rule 5 draft. "He made the plays he was supposed to make. He did fine over there."

Huff's defense received another vote of confidence from an even more trusted source.

"He looks pretty good to me," said Giants special assistant and former Gold Glove winner J.T. Snow. "We were doing a drill to pick balls out of the dirt, and he might have missed one. He's played it before, so he knows how to handle it."

That's no small matter to Snow. In previous years, the front office asked him to convert outfielders Daniel Ortmeier and John Bowker to first base. Those results weren't so pretty.

"Bunt plays, pickoffs "... the game moves pretty fast when you're on the infield for the first time," Snow said. "None of that is new to Aubrey. And I think he's a pretty honest guy. He said he'll do the best job he can. He's not expecting to win a Gold Glove."

Huff's presence doesn't necessarily spell doom for Ishikawa, who received good news Saturday when an MRI exam showed partially torn ligaments in his foot are healing well and won't require surgery.

Ishikawa hopes to be out of his walking boot in a week and back to unrestricted duty soon after that.

Giants manager Bruce Bochy said Ishikawa remains "very much in the mix" for a roster spot. "Ishi has shown he can do some things to help you win a ballgame, whether it's defense or hitting a ball out of the ballpark."

It would seem Bochy plans to use Ishikawa often as a late-inning defensive replacement. The manager also said he plans to get Huff some work in the outfield, where he hasn't played a big league inning since 2006 with the Houston Astros.

"Just to make sure we have that option," Bochy said.

Huff is willing to transform himself as needed.

"I won't lie to you, I'm not the rangiest guy," he said. "I mean, it's not like I won't dive for a ball. I'll make the routine play and occasionally make the really good play. That's all you can ask for."



(mercurynews.com)

The Associated Press reports that Giants C Bengie Molina will cede the cleanup spot to incoming free agent Aubrey Huff this season.




(fantasysp.com)

Aubrey Huff is a heart-of-the-order hitter, a big man with a big swing. Six times, he topped 20 home runs. Twice, he topped 30. He has more career homers (203) than any Giant since Barry Bonds' departure.

Even his sense of humor is vast. Asked about hitting at China Basin, which has been tough on lefty swingers, Huff said, "If Barry Bonds can hit home runs there, I can, right?"

The Giants made the Huff signing official Wednesday (one year, $3 million) and said he'll play first base and bat fourth in a lineup they envision looking like this, 1 through 5: Aaron Rowand (.341 on-base percentage in 50 games leading off last year), Freddy Sanchez, Pablo Sandoval, Huff and Mark DeRosa, who's targeted for left field.

"I think we have a chance to have more of a set lineup," general manager Brian Sabean said. "With Rowand as the leadoff hitter and Sanchez the second hitter, all of a sudden you have five guys in a row you're comfortable with and have a track record. I think the offense has improved, but it still has to translate on the field, and the players have to respond."

Before Huff's arrival, Sandoval was penciled in at cleanup, but now the Panda returns to the No. 3 spot, where he spent most of 2009 (97 games). Huff hit fourth 94 times last year and has hit there 517 times in his career.

"I personally feel your all-around best hitter should be in the three hole," manager Bruce Bochy said.

The 6-7-8 hitters, in no particular order, would be shortstop Edgar Renteria, right fielder Nate Schierholtz (unless John Bowker or someone from the outside wins the job) and the catcher. Sabean seemed confident he could sign a catcher (Yorvit Torrealba and Rod Barajas are unsigned) to give Buster Posey more seasoning.

Huff, 33, is looking for a bounce-back year after hitting .241 with 15 homers and 85 RBIs with Baltimore and Detroit. In 2008, he hit .304 with 32 homers and 108 RBIs and won a Silver Slugger Award as the American League's top DH.

No first-base platoon is planned, but Huff could see time in the outfield on days Travis Ishikawa plays first. Though he's considered sub-par defensively, Huff said, "I've always been pretty good at first base. Once you get that label of not being able to play good defense, which is what happened at third base early on in my career, it's hard to shake it."

At the Giants' park, Huff is 4-for-12 with a 2002 home run off Livan Hernandez.

Sabean confirmed Sandoval gained a few pounds in Venezuela since graduating from "Camp Panda," his 10-day, Arizona-based workout in November. But Sabean said he expects Sandoval will return to his "target weight" to start the season.



(sfgate.com)

The San Francisco Giants and first baseman Aubrey Huff agreed to a one-year contract pending a physical, a person with knowledge of the negotiations told The Associated Press on Sunday night.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the team hasn't made a formal announcement, which might not come until later in the week once all the details are finalized. Huff and the Giants reached their preliminary agreement sometime during the weekend.

Acquiring a reliable left-handed bat with power was one of Giants general manager Brian Sabean's top priorities this offseason leading into the start of spring training next month in Scottsdale, Ariz. — and one of the final things still on his winter to-do list.

While San Francisco's pitching has been stellar — led by two-time reigning NL Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum — upgrading the offense was considered an key step for this club in order to get back to the playoffs after a six-year drought.

The 33-year-old Huff was traded from Baltimore to Detroit in August. He batted .241 with 15 homers and 85 RBIs in 150 games between the two teams.

San Francisco will be eager to have his offensive punch. The Giants ranked 29th out of the 30 major league teams for home runs in 2009 with 122, ahead only of the New York Mets (95). They also were 26th in runs with 657.

With the addition of Huff, manager Bruce Bochy will have options writing his lineup. While Huff is likely to play first and free-swinging slugger Pablo Sandoval probably will stay put at third, there's been talk of moving Sandoval to first — doable considering Huff also can play third. San Francisco last week re-signed utility infielder Juan Uribe to a $3.25 million, one-year contract, and Sabean said he is expected to play more regularly than his 122 games last season.



(sfgate.com)

This time last year, Aubrey Huff and Melvin Mora were heading into their contract years with significant momentum.

Huff was the 2008 Most Valuable Oriole and the American League Silver Slugger Award winner at designated hitter after batting .304 with 32 homers and 108 RBIs.

One disappointing season later, however, both Huff and Mora are without jobs as spring training approaches. The Orioles have shown no interest in retaining either player.

Neither says he is concerned -- yet.

"I'm not worried about it. I did the same thing with the Orioles" as a free agent in 2007, Huff said. "It seems like every year it gets later and later. I don't know why it is. I'm just chilling out. I haven't heard anything. I've talked to my agents, and they're pushing teams and looking around. But it seems like unless you are a [Matt] Holliday, [Jason] Bay or [ John] Lackey, you have to fall in line."

Huff, 33, batted .241 in 2009 with 15 homers and 85 RBIs. He was traded to the Detroit Tigers in August and ended the season dismally, hitting just .189 with two homers in 40 games as a part-timer.

"It was frustrating," Huff said. "I was expecting to be an everyday player, but it just didn't happen. ... There's no doubt when I played, it wasn't pretty. There are no excuses performing like I did, but I have been an everyday player my whole life, and the whole situation took me by surprise."

Typical of Huff's easygoing style, he's not stressed about the lack of suitors. He is heading this weekend to Las Vegas to hang out with friends.

"Something will come along; it always does," Huff said. "And if it doesn't, it wasn't meant to be."

Mora, meanwhile, said several clubs have contacted his agent, including the Colorado Rockies, St. Louis Cardinals and Los Angeles Angels. Last month, Mora said, he spoke to Rockies manager Jim Tracy at length on the phone, and he said he talks regularly with Mets ace Johan Santana, who wants him to play for New York.

"You never know, but I hope not," Huff said. "If that's the case, I don't know what I'd do to be honest with you."