Barry Bonds walks more than Dr. Scholl. Opposing pitchers are so spooked at the moment that the Giants could stick a cardboard cutout in the batter’s box and it would be guaranteed at least one free pass every game.

Bonds has walked in 101 of the 124 games he’s played, and in 65 of those, more than once. He leads the National League in batting average, but he might finish the season with 70 or more walks than hits. He’s No. 3 in runs scored, but could wind up walking to first almost twice as often as he crosses the plate. He has 32 more walks than the top two batters in the American League combined, four times more intentional passes than the next closest player (101 vs. Jim Thome’s 25) and almost double the next closest team (St. Louis, 57).

Bonds has already walked more than any major leaguer in history, more than anyone in a single season – and with 194 already, he’ll probably break his own record (198 in 2002) before the week is out.

In typical fashion, the Arizona Diamondbacks walked Bonds twice Sunday in a 4-1 loss in San Francisco. The second time was on purpose – it came in the seventh inning with Bonds’ teammates already occupying first and second – and this from a team with no chance of making the postseason.

And in typical fashion, Bonds refused afterward to talk about it, or anything else for that matter. That task fell to his designated speaker, Giants manager Felipe Alou.

“I’ve seen worse than that,” he said. “At least the game was close.

“And sometimes,” Alou added a second later, “I understand the strategy of those walks.”

But not always.

On Friday, Arizona walked Bonds when they were trailing 11-5. They wound up losing 18-7, but somehow Alou held his tongue until the series was over and the Diamondbacks were preparing to leave town.

“To me,” he said, “it’s ridiculous.”

If you’re sensing a theme, it’s that Alou shouldn’t be only one baiting the opposition. Put aside his vested interest – the Giants are chasing a wild-card spot – and your feelings about Bonds for just a moment (we’ll address those later) and there’s no doubt that what’s happening is unprecedented, unfair and practically un-American.

Because baseball is that rare game where the defense begins every play with possession of the ball, he’s being frozen out in a way that Michael Jordan, Joe Montana and Wayne Gretzky never could, and way more than any baseball player ever has, including Babe Ruth.

And things won’t improve anytime soon. Bonds is three home runs shy of 700, just 17 behind Babe and 58 behind Henry Aaron, and everybody knows what’s in store.

“I believe it going to get even worse,” Alou said. “A pitcher isn’t going to want to be the one who gives up 700 or 755. It’s not going to get better, that’s for sure.”

To which some fans will say, “Amen.”

There is no separating Bonds from the supersizing of baseball that began when the game returned from the strike-shortened 1994 season. To many, he’s the first float in a juiced parade. The argument goes that because home runs came so cheaply to so many pumped-up sluggers for so long that Bonds is simply getting what he deserves.

And then there’s the damage he’s done to the campaign himself. Fair or not, Bonds has been portrayed as selfish, arrogant and short on hustle, and he’s consistently downplayed his own achievements, besides – but not always out of a sense of modesty. Some fans have taken the image of Bonds’ teammates staying seated in the dugout when he crossed home plate after hitting home run No. 500, and turned it into an object lesson.

In the intervening years, though, Bonds has done lots of things differently. He’s held his tongue as the rumors spread and the strikes thrown his way dried up, narrowing his focus to the one or two hittable pitches he sees each night and turning them around with frightening regularity. Believe whatever you want about performance-enhancers adding distance to a drive, they still do nothing to improve contact.

Bonds’ on-base and slugging percentages are so far ahead of the competition, it looks like he’s the only player in the “A” flight. If you think smacking one home run for every eight at-bats is impressive, consider: The Sporting News reported that as of last week, Bonds was swinging at only 28 percent of the pitches he saw, by far the lowest rate in the majors, and missing on only 12 percent of those cuts.

Keep that in mind as Bonds inches his way past this milestone or that one. Teams that aren’t in contention won’t pitch to him and those that are don’t have to because the Giants haven’t yet found somebody to hit in the No. 5 spot who can cover Bonds’ back.

It’s becoming so predictable and edging so close to making a mockery of things that any day soon, you’ll look up and see Triumph the Insult Comic Dog batting behind him.