Winn is a Giant in the outfield, too

August 27, 8:47 PMSF Baseball ExaminerDavid Bush

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Randy Winn has been outstanding in the field.

            Outfielder Randy Winn leads the Giants in batting average and few hitters in baseball have been more effective the past month. But when his manager talks about him, he takes awhile to get around to his offense.

           “We’ve got a great right fielder,’’ Bruce Bochy said prior to Wednesday’s game against the Rockies. “He should get some Gold Glove consideration. I don’t think he gets enough credit in the outfield This is the hardest right field in all of baseball and he does a great job.’’

            And Winn has made the patch of grass just north of McCovey Cove his own playground, running down fly balls from the right field line to the deepest reaches of  what can be Triples Alley with a lesser outfielder on patrol. And the quirky dimensions AT&T Park are the least of Winn’s worries when he takes the field.  

  “ The wind,’’ he said when asked the primary reason his position is so difficult. “It’s really unpredictable. You can’t really look at the flags and tell which way it’s blowing. It knocks the  ball down, makes ball carry, pushes balls to center. It just does a lot of weird things.’’

           It seems that even after eight years playing right field in  the ballpark in China Basin is full of surprises. Winn’s assessment probably is a shock to those Giants fans who thought they left the wind behind when they departed Candlestick Park. “I never played at Candlestick,’’ said Winn, who joined the Giants in 2005, and spent the first six years of his decade long career in the American League. “So I don’t know how this compares to there. But I don’t know of any park like it today.

         “It’s really not something you can prepare for; when I’m out there I just kind of expect the unexpected. One day a ball hit over my head will get knocked down…another it might get pushed towards that big gap Out there you can’t say, ‘It always does this so I need to change my play because the ball will do this.’ ’’

          And as nasty as it is, the wind is just one of several problems right fielders encounter. The architects and engineers, who managed to minimize the breeze’s impact on the spectators while leaving the fielders to fend for themselves, had some other surprises in store.

      The bizarre dimensions 309 feet down the line, 365 in straight right field, 421 in right center, have already been mentioned. “And along with that you have the wall,’’ Winn said. “There are so many different surfaces. You have arches, you have the brick, you have the padding  and you have the chain link fence. And whenever the ball comes off those, it does something different, Also the wall is not smooth or flat so it (the ball) can kick any different way off of that.’’

      Just ask Ken Griffey, Jr.. The lasting memory of the 2007 All Star game was the sight of  Griffey, the National League right fielder, chasing the carom off the wall as Ichiro Suzuki ran around the bases to an inside the park home run and his MVP Award.

    But Winn, who played in all but six of the Giants first 133 games and committed just three errors, has mastered the position enough to keep his pursuits to a minimum.

     Did we mention he’s hitting .310 (through Tuesday) with a .427 mark in August?