Giants Ishikawa feeling right at home

May 26, 9:09 AMSan Francisco Giants ExaminerTheo Fightmaster

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Ishikawa has found his stroke in San Francisco. Photo Dino Vournas, AP

AT&T Park has played the role of antagonist in many hitters' night terrors. Adam Dunn refused to even consider San Francisco during his free agency, and opted instead for the greener pastures of Washington. Jeff Kent never liked hitting in China Basin, though he did it just about better than anyone with less than 762 homers. And J.T. Snow saw the Giants home park turn him from a 20 homerun a year hitter into Ozzie Smith at first base. 

This is what makes Travis Ishikawa's numbers at his home park so curious. After his first ever four hit game, first homerun of the season, and a headlining role in the Giants' win over the surging Braves (Braves Examiner), a look at Ishikawa's numbers are confounding.

At home Ishikawa has had 61 at bats, is a .366 hitter with 14 RBI's, an OPS of .895, has scored 11 runs and has hit each of his extra base hits.

On the road he's just a .077 hitter (3 for 39), one RBI with no extra base knocks, only two runs scored and an on base percentage of just .217.

Clearly there is a comfort issue, and one that can't continue to plague Ishikawa if he has designs of keeping his job; especially now that Jesus Guzman is with the team and GM Brian Sabean is publicly on the hunt for some power.

The homer was the first by a Giants first baseman on the year, and at 44 games into the season they were the last team to have a round tripper from that position (Dodgers were second to last). Ishikawa was not alone in taking the blame. Rich Aurilia has played 26 games at first and is hitting just .177 in those chances, with two extra base hits and 10 RBI's. Guzman has found his way into four games, all on the past road trip, and is just 1 for 10.

Sure, Sunday's game did some to further skew numbers in Ishikawa's favor, and in all fairness the first hit was a pop up on the infield that was misplayed by the Braves. But Bruce Bochy's last minute decision to go with Ishikawa instead of Guzman paid off. It's yet to be known whether or not this out burst will buy him more time at first base, but I say it should.

Guzman is the equivalent of the backup quarterback. In other words, he's the guy the fans haven't seen play so they fall victim to the halo fallacy, assuming he's better than he really is. True, his numbers from Fresno are awfully impressive, and he at least brings the promise of power to the line up, but his defense is less than acceptable, and at first base, contrary to popular belief, you need a guy who can catch and throw.

We know Ishikawa can flash the leather and start the 3-6-3 double play as well as anybody in the league.   Now that he's 100 at-bats into his first ever major league starting job we will start seeing a more representative view of what he can do with the bat.