San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds left Wednesday's game against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the eighth inning after failing to hit a record-tying 755th career home run.
Bonds went 0 for 3 with a walk to remain at 754, one shy of Hank Aaron's record.
Giants manager Bruce Bochy brought in Fred Lewis to run for Bonds after he walked in the eighth.
Bonds is now 1 for 12 with eight walks since hitting a home run last Friday against Florida.
His .186 average in July was his lowest in a month since April 1991 when he hit .177, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. That includes months in which he had at least 15 at-bats.
Bonds went 0 for 3 against Los Angeles starter Mark Hendrickson. He flied out to right to lead off the second and hit a weak dribbler down the first base line in the fourth.
He hit a flare to centre field that looked like it would fall in for a base hit in the sixth, but Juan Pierre made a diving catch to record the out.
Bonds has never hit a career home run off either Hendrickson or Jonathan Broxton, the Dodgers reliever who issued the walk.
Los Angeles scored four runs in the bottom of the eighth and reliever Takashi Saito slammed the door shut in the ninth for a 6-4 comeback win.
Bonds, 43, passed Babe Ruth for second place on the all-time home run list in May 2006.
Bonds has 1,979 RBIs in 2,953 career games with the Pittsburgh Pirates and Giants. He made his major league debut against the Dodgers in 1986.
He also tops all major leaguers with 2,533 career walks and has earned an unprecedented seven National League Most Valuable Player Awards.
However, he has been dogged by suspicions of steroid use in the latter part of his career, documented in the book Game of Shadows.
Aaron, then with the Milwaukee Brewers, hit his 755th and final home run off Dick Drago of the California Angels on July 20, 1976. Aaron retired at the end of that season at the age of 42.
Baseball commissioner Bud Selig was among those in attendance at Dodger Stadium, while Aaron made good on his vow to stay away.
"I am not going to fly to go see somebody hit a home run, no matter whether it is Barry or Babe Ruth or Lou Gehrig or whoever it may be," Aaron, 74, told reporters in May.
Selig had planned to leave Los Angeles to attend a groundbreaking ceremony Thursday evening for a new stadium in Minnesota, but that event was postponed after a deadly bridge collapse in the Twin Cities.
With files from the Associated PressWayne Gretzky fined $10,000 over instigator
Phoenix Coyotes head coach Wayne Gretzky was fined $10,000 US by the NHL on Tuesday, an automatic fine levied because of the instigator penalty to defenceman Nick Boynton.
Sundin, Koivu stay under the microscope
The Toronto Maple Leafs will play their second road game in as many nights as they face one of the hottest teams in the NHL, the Montreal Canadiens (CBC, 6:30 p.m. ET).
Grabovski brings his flashy act west with Leafs
Back in the dark ages of the Toronto Maple Leafs' current rebuilding phase (this past July), Cliff Fletcher moved a second-round draft pick in 2010 and a prospect nobody had ever heard of (Greg Pateryn) to Montreal for centre Mikhail Grabovski.
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