SAN FRANCISCO -- Barry Bonds will be starting in left field Monday night against the Padres at SBC Park and batting fourth in his first game back after months of rehab on his surgically repaired right knee.

Giants manager Felipe Alou made it official Sunday after a little pregame chat on the field with the left-handed slugger, who will resume his pursuit of Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron for the all-time homer record. Bonds is at 703, 11 behind Ruth's 714 and 52 away from Aaron's 755.

Alou almost immediately came toward the assembled media sitting in the Giants dugout and waved four fingers to indicate that the mutual decision between player and manager was complete. Bonds said he was thrilled by the possibilities on his first day back from the disabled list.

"I'm in game mode," Bonds told MLB.com after the Giants lost, 3-2, to the Cubs, their third loss in the four-game series and fifth in the last six games. "This is where I want to be. This is what I envisioned all those months I was working to get my knee back where it needed to be."

That was the good news.

The bad news is that Moises Alou probably won't be batting behind Bonds. The younger Alou left Sunday's game in the eighth inning with a strained left groin and is considered day-to-day. The fact that he came out of the game so late led his father to believe that he won't be available for the big Bonds return.

"It's been hard all year to put Mo and Barry in the same lineup," the manager said. "I'm not very positive about it because he had to leave a game like that. Maybe we can get the two guys together before it's over just to see how it looks."

Felipe Alou had penciled a lineup with Ray Durham batting third, Bonds in the cleanup spot and Moises Alou batting fifth. Instead, Durham would bat fifth with J.T. Snow in the third slot, much like last year. That Bonds-Alou tandem is what the Giants were striving for when they signed the now 39-year-old Alou as a free agent last offseason.

Bonds then had surgery to repair meniscus in his right knee at the end of January, and problems compounded through the next three months. It has been 225 days since that initial surgery and nearly a year since Bonds has appeared in a game wearing a Giants uniform.

"Not only will the people attending the game be watching, but people all over the world will be watching," the elder Alou said.

He returns to a team that is struggling to remain in the semblance of a race for the National League West title. At 14 games under .500, the Giants are tied for third place with Arizona, seven games behind the first-place Padres, whom they play seven times in the last 20 games, including a three-game series here this week.

The Giants said there were still a few thousand seats remaining for each of those games.

Alou speculated that the return of his slugger with 20 games to play might be an energy booster for the team.

"We need a lift," he said. "We've been lifted by kids. Imagine a guy like Barry. It's too bad we are where we are. That's the sad thing about it. But a big lift is going to take place."

For his part, Bonds said it makes no difference that the Giants aren't in the thick of it. He's missed 142 games, by far the most in any single season in his 20-year career. But Monday, he'll be back on the field playing competitive baseball, precisely where he wants to do be.

Barry Bonds  /   LF
		Born: 07/24/64 Height: 6'2" Weight: 230 lbs Bats: L / Throws: L More info: Player page Stats | Splits Gallery Team Site | Shop

"Right now I just try to slow my mind down and my body down and get everything ready for [Monday]," he said. "Less talking. I'll lock myself in my room, block it all out and get ready to play, that's it."

After taking the day off Saturday, Bonds went about his business Sunday at the ballpark, taking several rounds of batting practice and tuning up with some sprints and cuts in the outfield.

He met with Mike Homer and his family, who were awarded a visit with Bonds in a club auction. The Homers donated $30,000 for victims of the tsunami this past December in southeast Asia.

"We were going to donate money anyway and we thought this was a fine way of going about it," Homer said.

Bonds then departed for the clubhouse to ice his leg. His step had a spring to it as he jogged up the rubber-padded stairs that lead to the clubhouse from the dugout. Before Bonds departed to Los Angeles on June 24 to work under the care of Dr. Lewis Yocum, the Angels' orthopedic specialist, and physical therapist Clive Brewster at the Kerlan-Jobe Clinic, he could hardly ascend those same stairs without the help of a crutch.

"What a difference a few months make," Bonds said, reflecting on the work it has taken to get back to this point.

The senior Alou asked Bonds during their little batting-practice chat along the third-base line how many innings he'd like to play in his inaugural game of the 2005 season.

"'I'm playing the game,'" Alou said Bonds told him. "If we have a [good] game going, I guess he'll go nine. But if it's a blowout either way, I'm sure I'll get him out of there."

As far as how many of the 20 games Bonds intends to start, that will be dictated by him, although he's certain to see at least a pinch-hit appearance in each one, depending upon his health.

"Everything is up in the air," Bonds said Saturday.

Despite hobbling on injured knees the final six weeks of last season, Bonds had one of the best years of his career, leading the NL with a .362 batting average. He added 45 homers and 101 RBIs, scored 129 runs and shattered his own records with 232 walks, 120 of them intentional. In comparison, the Padres' Brian Giles leads the Majors this season with 106 walks.

Bonds finally reached the 700-homer mark on Sept. 17 with an opposite-field shot into the front of the left-field bleachers at SBC Park off Padres right-hander Jake Peavy.

Since the end of last season, Bonds has had operations four times to repair his knees, beginning with a procedure to scrape debris from beneath his left kneecap on Oct. 12.

He then had surgery to remove meniscus from the problematic right knee on Jan. 31 and March 17. After a serious bacterial infection set in that threatened the very existence of his lower right leg, Bonds had surgery again on May 2 to eradicate that infection.

Alou, for one, is ecstatic that Bonds is back.

"A player like Barry is good for 10, 12 more wins a year," he said, creating music for the ears of at least everyone in these environs.