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Good plan.
Cano homered on each of his first two swings against the two-time Cy Young Award winner and the New York Yankees hit four long balls off an ineffective Santana in a 9-1 rout of the Mets on Friday night at Yankee Stadium.
Cano’s second shot was the first of three straight homers off Santana, who was coming off a no-hitter against St. Louis.
“That’s a guy you want to go and be aggressive because you don’t want to get behind (in) the count,” Cano said. “He’s got some great pitches.”
In the first Subway Series game of the season, Hiroki Kuroda allowed one hit in seven scoreless innings before leaving with a bruised left foot. Kuroda (5-6) gave up only a two-out double in the sixth to Omar Quintanilla but ended the night hopping out of the clubhouse on crutches.
Santana (3-3) had two extra days off after throwing a career-high 134 pitches last Friday in the first no-hitter in the Met’ 50-year history. But he didn’t have it this time, serving up a career-high four homers during his team’s fourth loss in five games.
“A couple of extra days and I felt fine,” Santana said. “I just didn’t have my feeling for a couple of my pitches. There were times when they stayed up and when you leave pitches up, you know, they’re a pretty good team and in this ballpark, you keep pitches up, they end up out of the park, and that’s what happened.”
Mets manager Terry Collins had a different take on Santana’s performance. He blamed himself, saying the two extra days between starts left Santana rusty.
“It’s my doing, it’s not his,” Collins said. “We erred on the side of caution and it cost us the game.”
