Robinson Cano has had a miserable first season with the New York Mets. He entered Tuesday hitting .243/.288/.377 (77 OPS+) with six home runs in 74 games. Add in some hustle-related controversy earlier in the year, and it's been a season to forget for the veteran second baseman.
Yet Cano had himself a Tuesday night worth remembering against the San Diego Padres, homering three times and driving in all five of New York's runs in his first multi-homer effort since 2017. Take a look:
Robinson Cano with his first career three-homer game!!! 💥💥💥 pic.twitter.com/8k0w8pY7kW
— SNY (@SNYtv) July 24, 2019
Cano has 22 two-homer games, but Tuesday marked his first of the three-homer variety. He's now homered five times in the second half after homering four times in the first half. He acknowledged his power shortage after the game:
Was Robinson Cano thinking home run when he came up to the plate?
— SNY (@SNYtv) July 24, 2019
"Honestly no...It was hard for me to get 4 for almost half the season" pic.twitter.com/nWrvFbbYFy
Perhaps Cano is getting going? Even if not, his performance on Tuesday raised his seasonal line to .254/.298/.418. Still not good, but better.
Cano's three-homer game is the 14th in Mets history, by the way. Yoenis Cespedes provided the most recent two, with the latest coming in April 2017. Lucas Duda, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Ike Davis, and Carlos Beltran are the others to do it in the past decade.
Cano is the second second baseman in Mets history with a three-homer game, joining Edgardo Alfonzo, who hit three in August of 1999.