Canseco: No Place Like Angel Home : Baseball: His three-run homer supports Welch, gives A’s a 5-2 victory in Anaheim Stadium season opener.

Physically, Jose Canseco is in prime shape, with no hint of the back woes that haunted him last season.

Mentally, the Oakland Athletic outfielder said, “I’ve always been in the game.”

Only one element of his game is missing.

“When I’m 100% well, my timing is good and everything’s going well; you’ve all been around long enough to know what I can do,” he said. “My timing is coming. I didn’t get enough at-bats in spring training for it to be there yet, but that was by design. It’s coming.”

Canseco’s timing was impeccable in the seventh Monday against the Angels. He blasted Kirk McCaskill’s first pitch to him deep into the left-field seats for a three-run home run, powering the A’s to a 5-2 victory that deflated the previously festive crowd of 44,339 at the Angels’ home opener.

Designated hitter Dave Parker had said the Angels wanted no less than a split from this four-game series. Losing the opener didn’t daunt him.

“I think we’re going to be in the hunt the whole way,” said Parker, who was two for four and scored the Angels’ second run, in the fourth inning, on a wild pitch by 1990 Cy Young winner Bob Welch.

“I think they’re well aware of us being a good ballclub. You can’t put too much emphasis on Oakland. Simple mathematics tells you you’ve got to win games from the rest of the league, not just Oakland.”

The Angels were even with the defending American League champions until the seventh inning, squeezing out runs against Welch in the third and fourth. The A’s didn’t have Rickey Henderson, who has a strained left calf muscle, and shortstop Walt Weiss, who has a strained hamstring, but they weren’t lacking for much.

“They have a good team, whether Henderson and Weiss are out there or not,” Angel first baseman Wally Joyner said. “I think we have a very good chance of beating those guys every time we face them. . . . I think we had them outplayed. They just ran down a few balls.”

Welch, although far from perfect with his control--he hit Lance Parrish, walked Dick Schofield and threw a wild pitch in the fourth--hung in for a solid eight innings before yielding to Dennis Eckersley. Welch has won eight consecutive games against the Angels since losing his first career decision against them.

“He worked very hard. They’re an outstanding club and all he did was give them two runs,” Oakland Manager Tony La Russa said. “It was a big win for him and for us.”

They won because Canseco, determined not let McCaskill ahead in the count, homered on a fastball he described as “up just a tad.” It was his 10th home run and 26th run batted in in 26 games at Anaheim Stadium. Angel catcher Parrish had called for a curveball, but McCaskill shook him off and went with a fastball that sailed high.

“This is a great hitter’s ballpark,” Canseco said. “I didn’t doubt it was gone, not here.”

The Angels lamented that their chance to win the first game of the series had gone.

“We have to try to win this game,” said second baseman Luis Sojo, whose two-out squeeze bunt in the third scored Junior Felix with the Angels’ first run. “They don’t have Rickey, and that’s good for us because he gives trouble to everybody.”

McCaskill, who had won his first outing Wednesday in Seattle, pitched well in the middle innings Monday after a rocky start. He walked the first three hitters and faced a 1-0 deficit when Lance Blankenship scored on Harold Baines’ double-play grounder. McCaskill walked Terry Steinbach on four pitches before getting Mark McGwire to fly to right.

“I was too fine, too keyed up,” McCaskill said. “I wasn’t staying back and throwing strikes. It was a bad way to start the game.”

The Angels matched that run in the third inning and McCaskill recovered nicely from his home-opening jitters. The A’s got to him again in the fourth on a single by Steinbach, a ground-rule double by McGwire and Willie Wilson’s RBI groundout. McCaskill held them off again until Mike Gallego’s one-out single in the seventh, Dave Henderson’s two-out single and Canseco’s decisive home run.

“It was a classic case of a bad idea, a bad pitch at a bad time,” McCaskill said.

With so much time left in the season, Canseco downplayed the importance of this series in the scheme of things in the AL West.

“It’s only seven games into the season,” Canseco said. “This game isn’t going to predict who dominates the race. We just got the upper hand with a three-run home run.”

A well-timed three-run home run.