Alfonso Soriano's 2 HRs, 7 RBIs key Yankees' rout
Alfonso Soriano is not a "What if'' type of guy. He does not wonder "what if'' the Yankees hadn't blown a lead and he would have gone down in history for having hit the winning home run in Game 7 of the 2001 World Series. And he does not stay up nights musing on what life would have been like if the Yankees had not dealt him 10 years ago.
"It was not my choice. I did not want to go. But they traded me for one of the best players at that moment,'' he said, referring to Alex Rodriguez, whose double helped set up Soriano's first-inning grand slam in a second consecutive grand night (3-for-3, seven RBIs). Soriano hit a two-run double in the second and another homer in the fifth, sending his revived team to an 11-3 win over the Angels at the Stadium.
"Pretty good,'' he said, after breaking his career record for six RBIs in a game, set the previous night. "You don't have those days too often. I got 13 in two days, so I'm very excited, very happy.''
Soriano is only the third player with at least six RBIs in consecutive games, joining Rusty Greer (Rangers, 1997) and Geoff Jenkins (Brewers, 2001). Tony Lazzeri (Yankees, 1936) holds the record with 15 RBIs (4, 11) in back-to-back games.
The pivotal question is, what if Soriano and theYankees keep playing like this? Could this be the start of a playoff run?
They have won four in a row and five of six. Teammates Wednesday night laughed with Soriano ("A lot of them don't know me yet,'' he said). He allowed Ivan Nova (6-4) breathing room on a night when he allowed three runs and 10 hits.
Soriano complemented the 4-for-4 effort by Robinson Cano, his Dominican countryman and successor at second base. Most interestingly, the returnee continued to pump life into a club that looked lifeless last week.
"I was here in September when he didn't get to play a lot but I remember them talking about this is a young shortstop who can really hit,'' Joe Girardi said, recalling 1999. "They were thinking about where they were going to put him because we had this one guy playing short at the time. But just seeing a wiry kid and seeing how much power he had, you were like, 'Wow.' ''
This was as much of a "Wow'' event as you could imagine: Soriano's second consecutive two-homer game. He put an immediate stamp on it by tagging a slam to centerfield against Jered Weaver (7-6) with two outs in the first. It was more proof of Brian Cashman's assertion after the trade deadline that the Yankees had acquired the majors' best available hitter days earlier.
"I feel like I never left," Soriano, 37, said yesterday. "It's 10 years, but I came back and just forgot those 10 years.''
Yet there was much productivity in those seasons, enough to bring him to the doorstep of the 2,000-hit milestone, which he reached Sunday. It was an achievement and a relief.
"I really thought 2,000 was in his head and he was in a hurry to get it out of the way,'' Girardi said. "It caused him to chase a lot of pitches and not be the guy that he is. Once he got by it, he started to relax a little bit.''
Nodding toward a box in his locker, Soriano said he has kept the 2,000-hit ball and will put it in a trophy case. The bat is not going on any shelf, though. "If I break it, I will keep it with me,'' he said. "Right now, I want to keep swinging.''
Fans sang his name after his second homer, celebrating a second straight blowout powered by a man celebrating his second time around as a Yankee.
"Things change,'' Soriano said. "That's the game.''
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