Huff proving to be two-dimensional

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)