When the Yankees signed Jose Canseco off waivers Monday, the move was questioned and Joe Torre admitted to being “shocked” and “stunned.” But yesterday, Canseco left Oakland pitching shell-shocked and stunned. For the first time since the Bombers picked him up, Canseco gave them exactly what they got him for – Power. Raw, unadulterated upper-deck power.
He made his first start for the Yankees yesterday, and helped his new team put a 12-6 beating on Oakland, one of his former clubs. He went 2-for-2 with a walk, two sacrifice flies and three RBIs. Oh, and he crushed a solo shot off battered A’s starter Mark Mulder in the fourth inning, a towering shot into the upper deck in left long enough for an in-flight movie.
“I was nervous. Don’t kid yourself,” Canseco said. But afterwards, after his offense had helped David Cone break his eight-game losing streak and left the Stadium crowd of 41,011 slack-jawed, even Torre seemed impressed.
“It definitely didn’t take long for it to get out (of The Stadium). Scott Brosius joked with Canseco, ‘I knew it was fair; I just wasn’t sure it was far enough,’ ” Torre said facetiously. “You couldn’t have written a script any better, both he and (Glenallen) Hill with home runs. It’s a little pop we haven’t had in awhile. We’ll do it again tomorrow.”
A second straight game start today at DH would be noteworthy for Canseco. After all, his arrival wasn’t exactly hailed by the press, and Hill – another DH-type the Yanks picked up on July 20 from the Chicago Cubs – excelled both at the plate and in the field, going 3-for-4 with a homer and three RBIs and handling left-field with no problems. So for Canseco, starts are no longer the forgone conclusion they once were.
“Well, it’s definitely a different situation for me, but I’m going to take it one game at a time and have a positive attitude and try to help the team win,” said Canseco, a career .167 pinch-hitter. But yesterday he bludgeoned A’s pitching, with a walk in the first, an RBI sacrifice fly in the Yank’s six-run second and again in the sixth, and a double to left in the seventh.
“I think probably what’s most important is being in the lineup and scoring runs for Cone early,” said Canseco, who batted cleanup yesterday against Oakland, for whom he hit 231 homers from late 1985 through 1992. “That gave him an opportunity to make a mistake or two out there and not feel like the game was over for him. That’s great.”
That might have been his most important contribution, but his 10th homer of the year was his most impressive. He crushed a first-pitch changeup, watching as his 441st career homer bounced off the second row of the left-field upper tier.
“He had started me off my first two at-bats with breaking balls, so I was looking over the middle of the plate, and he gave me a pitch I could handle,” said Canseco, one behind Dave Kingman for 23rd on the all-time list. “It was just a changeup up.”
Make that a changeup out.
