These days, Barry Bonds is a ghost, and that’s all.

He rattles around in familiar places, revives familiar memories, makes scary noises, and sometimes even tricks the Giants into believing he has some effect on the tangible effort to win baseball games.

Which he doesn’t. He didn’t in the ninth inning Sunday, he hasn’t for more than a month, and he might not for quite a while more.

Because Bonds, who has one home run in his past 76 at-bats and actually has looked worse and weaker than that, is a slap-hitting, off-balance apparition now.

At 42, he’s a fading figment of what he was three years ago, last year . . . even six weeks ago.

That was a ghost who quietly made the penultimate out of the Giants’ 2-0 loss to the A’s on Sunday. That was a specter.

Of course, Bonds didn’t look worried Sunday afternoon as he floated out of the Giants clubhouse with his son. He didn’t look tense. He looked past tense, really.

And it’s about time his teammates, his manager, his front office and his fans realized that.

I think they are beginning to see. The Giants stubbornly brought him back as their centerpiece this season, but Bonds has only six extra-base hits and seven RBIs since May 4, as the Giants have tumbled into last place.

So I think they have to see.

On Sunday, longtime teammate Rich Aurilia went through three stages of Bonds understanding – denial, grief and frustration – in split seconds, in the bottom of the ninth, with the game on the line.

And it was as confusing to witness as it was for Aurilia to experience.

The Giants trailed 2-0. There was one out. Aurilia was on first. Bonds was up, facing A’s closer Alan Embree as the potential tying run.

When Embree skipped a breaking ball to the backstop, Aurilia immediately broke for second, which he would’ve made easily. Then he stopped halfway there. Then he retreated a couple of steps and gestured in Bonds’ direction. Then he stopped again. Then he slowly trudged back to first.

Why didn’t he move to second to eliminate the double play? Because the Old Bonds would’ve automatically been intentionally walked at that point, and the Old Giants never gave opponents an excuse to take the bat out of Bonds’ hands.

“A lot of times in the past, you know, with him hitting, with the tying or winning run at the plate, I’ve been told to not go,” Aurilia said.

But Aurilia conceded he should have gone to second. If Bonds isn’t the Old Bonds any more, the play is to go to second.

“I don’t know if I was just living in the past right there or what,” Aurilia said.

I got a graveyard chill down my spine when I heard those words spoken by a solid Giant in the Giants clubhouse relating an incident connected to the Bonds dissipation.

Living in the past? Denial reality about Bonds? You think?

Three pitches after the Aurilia no-go, Bonds was late on an Embree fastball and flied softly to left field. One batter later, the Giants were shut out again, Bonds had been held homer-less again, and the Giants’ descent deepened again.

Living in the past, dying in last place in the NL West.

Bruce Bochy, what were you thinking with Bonds up there with a chance to tie the score?

“It’s pretty obvious what I’m thinking – hope he gets a pitch he can hit,” the Giants manager said. “But you know, he just missed it.”