A 9-year-old Pennsylvania boy struck by a hit-and-run driver outside a Giants game last week is now speaking in sentences to his parents despite a “traumatic” brain injury.

Ryan White’s condition is slowly improving after he sustained fractures to his pelvis, left leg and ankle, a laceration to his liver and a brain injury, his parents said in a statement Tuesday. White and a woman were struck by a pickup truck at the intersection of Mission and New Montgomery streets at about 10:30 p.m. Thursday.

“In a matter of days he has gone from giving us a thumbs up or thumbs down response to speaking in sentences for the first time this morning,” White’s parents said in a statement. “Ryan has a long road ahead of him, but he is young and strong and we expect steady improvement especially when he can engage in rehabilitation full time.”

The 21-year-old Hayward man who police say hit the boy while driving drunk posted $65,000 bail and is no longer in custody, according to the District Attorney’s Office. Andrew Alan Vargas is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday afternoon.

One of the drunken driving charges alleges Vargas was driving with an open container, failed to stop at a red light, drove the wrong way on a one-way street and failed to yield the right of way to a pedestrian, according to the District Attorney’s Office.

“Our thoughts and prayers remain with him and his family as he recovers from this terrible incident,” Mayor Ed Lee said in a statement after visiting White in the hospital.

 bbegin@sfexaminer.com