diff --git a/pkg/sql/rowexec/sampler.go b/pkg/sql/rowexec/sampler.go
index 7976e367ba1c..81ec3f2b2fe4 100644
--- a/pkg/sql/rowexec/sampler.go
+++ b/pkg/sql/rowexec/sampler.go
@@ -242,7 +242,6 @@ func (s *samplerProcessor) mainLoop(
 	ctx context.Context, output execinfra.RowReceiver,
 ) (earlyExit bool, err error) {
 	rng, _ := randutil.NewPseudoRand()
-	var da tree.DatumAlloc
 	var buf []byte
 	rowCount := 0
 	lastWakeupTime := timeutil.Now()
@@ -320,7 +319,7 @@ func (s *samplerProcessor) mainLoop(
 		}
 
 		for i := range s.sketches {
-			if err := s.sketches[i].addRow(ctx, row, s.outTypes, &buf, &da); err != nil {
+			if err := s.sketches[i].addRow(ctx, row, s.outTypes, &buf); err != nil {
 				return false, err
 			}
 		}
@@ -329,7 +328,7 @@ func (s *samplerProcessor) mainLoop(
 		}
 
 		for col, invSr := range s.invSr {
-			if err := row[col].EnsureDecoded(s.outTypes[col], &da); err != nil {
+			if err := row[col].EnsureDecoded(s.outTypes[col], nil /* da */); err != nil {
 				return false, err
 			}
 
@@ -349,8 +348,9 @@ func (s *samplerProcessor) mainLoop(
 				return false, err
 			}
 			for _, key := range invKeys {
-				invRow[0].Datum = da.NewDBytes(tree.DBytes(key))
-				if err := s.invSketch[col].addRow(ctx, invRow, bytesRowType, &buf, &da); err != nil {
+				d := tree.DBytes(key)
+				invRow[0].Datum = &d
+				if err := s.invSketch[col].addRow(ctx, invRow, bytesRowType, &buf); err != nil {
 					return false, err
 				}
 				if earlyExit, err = s.sampleRow(ctx, output, invSr, invRow, rng); earlyExit || err != nil {
@@ -506,7 +506,7 @@ func (s *samplerProcessor) DoesNotUseTxn() bool {
 
 // addRow adds a row to the sketch and updates row counts.
 func (s *sketchInfo) addRow(
-	ctx context.Context, row rowenc.EncDatumRow, typs []*types.T, buf *[]byte, da *tree.DatumAlloc,
+	ctx context.Context, row rowenc.EncDatumRow, typs []*types.T, buf *[]byte,
 ) error {
 	var err error
 	s.numRows++
@@ -555,9 +555,19 @@ func (s *sketchInfo) addRow(
 	isNull := true
 	*buf = (*buf)[:0]
 	for _, col := range s.spec.Columns {
+		// We pass nil DatumAlloc so that each datum allocation was independent
+		// (to prevent bounded memory leaks like we've seen in #136394).
+		// TODO(yuzefovich): the problem in that issue was that the same backing
+		// slice of datums was shared across rows, so if a single row was kept
+		// as a sample, it could keep many garbage alive. To go around that we
+		// simply disabled the batching. We could improve that behavior by using
+		// a DatumAlloc in which we set typeAllocSizes in such a way that all
+		// columns of the same type in a single row would be backed by a single
+		// slice allocation.
+		//
 		// We choose to not perform the memory accounting for possibly decoded
 		// tree.Datum because we will lose the references to row very soon.
-		*buf, err = row[col].Fingerprint(ctx, typs[col], da, *buf, nil /* acc */)
+		*buf, err = row[col].Fingerprint(ctx, typs[col], nil /* da */, *buf, nil /* acc */)
 		if err != nil {
 			return err
 		}
diff --git a/pkg/sql/stats/row_sampling.go b/pkg/sql/stats/row_sampling.go
index 374d80d91d41..a46d131023c2 100644
--- a/pkg/sql/stats/row_sampling.go
+++ b/pkg/sql/stats/row_sampling.go
@@ -44,7 +44,6 @@ type SampledRow struct {
 type SampleReservoir struct {
 	samples  []SampledRow
 	colTypes []*types.T
-	da       tree.DatumAlloc
 	ra       rowenc.EncDatumRowAlloc
 	memAcc   *mon.BoundAccount
 
@@ -255,7 +254,7 @@ func (sr *SampleReservoir) copyRow(
 		// the encoded bytes. The encoded bytes would have been scanned in a batch
 		// of ~10000 rows, so we must delete the reference to allow the garbage
 		// collector to release the memory from the batch.
-		if err := src[i].EnsureDecoded(sr.colTypes[i], &sr.da); err != nil {
+		if err := src[i].EnsureDecoded(sr.colTypes[i], nil /* da */); err != nil {
 			return err
 		}
 		beforeRowSize += int64(dst[i].Size())