Torii doin' work.
A few more games like this, and Spike Lee may be rolling out a Torii Hunter documentary.
In the meantime, with the first three-homer game of his 11-year career, the Angels outfielder has a brief notion what it's like to be that Bryant fellow profiled by Lee.
"Today, I felt like Kobe," said Hunter after the Angels' 9-1 hammering of San Diego on Saturday. "When Kobe's in the zone, he's hitting everything, and now I know how it feels. This is my first time. It felt pretty good."
Looked pretty good, too. In four at-bats, Hunter -- now at .321 with 49 RBIs -- laced a line-drive out to right, and hit his 14th, 15th and 16th homers of the season in the third, fifth and seventh innings. He missed a chance to go for a fourth homer when he was left in the on-deck circle as Bobby Abreu made the final out of the eighth.
"He said, 'I was trying to work him (Padres reliever Greg Burke), but it was just a bad day all around,' " Hunter said, recalling his subsequent conversation with Abreu, who also committed the ninth-inning error that cost Joe Saunders his chance for a complete game.
"He was trying his best to get on, but it just didn't work out for me. ...
"I was cheering for him. I was like, 'C'mon baby, get a hit. Stay in there. Foul him off.' I was screaming at him. He was looking at me: 'I'm trying, you know.' ... He's at the plate, cracking me up."
This may have been his biggest day with the bat, but ebullient Hunter has been huge for the Angels all season, as manager Mike Scioscia noted.
"I don't think you can pinpoint one guy and say he's carrying you," said Scioscia, "but what Torii's done so far this season has been remarkable.
"If we didn't have Torii producing like he has been, and all the other things were happening, where Vlad (Guerrero) has been struggling and some other guys have been a little bit soft, we would really be scrambling to get to the level we need to play.
"He's doing everything, from defense to running the bases, to what he's doing in the batter's box, to what he's doing in the clubhouse. I think it's an understatement to say he's an important part to this club. This guy's special, and believe me, we're glad to have him."
Hunter is certainly flirting with a career year -- a career .272 hitter, his best offensive numbers have been a .289 batting average (2002), 31 homers (2006) and 107 RBIs (2007) -- but the world doesn't seem to have noticed outside of the immediate Los Angeles of Anaheim area. Hunter is fifth in the balloting behind Jason Bay, Josh Hamilton, Ichiro Suzuki and Carl Crawford, although only Ichiro (.356) has a better average -- Crawford is also at .321 -- and Hunter has more homers than any of them. (The glaring error in the balloting is Hamilton, who has been injured and is batting just .240 with six homers.)
Not that Hunter is going to worry about it. Not surprisingly, since this truly seems to be an athlete who gets most of the things about his job, he has the whole all-star picture in perspective.
"You know, if it's for the fans, and if happens that I'm one of the guys voted in to play, that's fine," he said. "Other than that, I'm honored if I get there. If not, I go home and play with the kids for three days, let my body heal and see my son play some baseball.
"Either way's not so bad, is it?"
Well, no. And while Hunter clearly was enjoying every bit of the three-homer game, he also knew better than to let it skew his perspective on what he can do, and what he does best.
"Robbing a home run still feels better," he said. "If I could rob three home runs in a game, I would throw a party. All the media, all the fans, everybody is invited. And they get in, free admission."
(Feel free to print that out and save it for future reference, just in case.)
Hunter very nearly got a taste of his own home-run medicine, as the second homer was just barely out of reach for leaping San Diego outfielder Tony Gwinn Jr.
"When he went up," Hunter said, "I thought he caught it, and I put my head down. Then they said home run, so I acted like I knew I hit it afterward. ... When I touched home plate and came into the dugout, I told somebody, 'Only me can rob me.' "
Nobody robbed Hunter of anything Saturday. Home runs, spotlight, enjoyment of the moment, he had all of it.
"I loved this day," he said. "It was a lot of fun."