Canseco, Tampa Sinks Expos

Jose Canseco is enjoying his stay at Olympic Stadium.

Canseco hit his 23rd homer to help Mickey Callaway win his major league debut as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays snapped a seven-game interleague losing streak with a 5-3 win over the Montreal Expos on Saturday night.

Canseco went 4-for-5 with two doubles, a single and a homer off Dustin Hermanson (3-6) leading off the seventh.

"I hit it good," Canseco said. "When you hit it right, you know it's gone."

"I feel it's a pretty good hitter's ballpark," Canseco said. "I can see the ball pretty well and I've been lucky enough to make pretty good contact, and no one's catching it."

Callaway (1-0), who was called up from Triple-A Durham on Wednesday, allowed two runs and seven hits in six innings. He struck out four and walked three to end Montreal's four-game winning streak.

"I just tried to go out there, throw strikes and get ahead of the hitters," Callaway said. "I didn't really have a good fastball. I didn't get it established but fortunately my offspeed stuff was decent so I had to go with it and stay with it."

The Devil Rays, who have won only two of 11 and three of 19, won for the first time in eight interleague games this season. Tampa Bay is 6-18 overall against NL opponents.

"It's nice to shake hands again," Devil Rays manager Larry Rothschild said. "It's been a long time. We just needed to get this one behind us. We've played three good games in a row and hopefully we can get it going."

Roberto Hernandez pitched the ninth for his 17th save in 18 opportunities. Hernandez, whose last save was on June 2, has converted the only two save opportunities he has had since May 21.

Callaway also chopped consecutive infield singles off home plate on the first two pitches he saw, in the second and fourth, including an RBI single in the second to make it 1-0.

"We worked on that chop-and-run, it's a great rick " Rothschild joked. "I'll say something, he made contact and when you make contact you give yourself a chance and he did."

Vladimir Guerrero homered, doubled and scored two runs for Montreal. Jose Vidro and Orlando Merced each had three hits and two doubles.

Canseco put the Devil Rays ahead 4-2 when he drove Hermanson's 1-1 pitch over the left-field bleachers.

"It was a good swing," Canseco said. "It was a slider up. I didn't try and overpower it. It was one of my better swings. I let the bat do the work."

Hermanson gave up 12 hits and allowed five runs four earned in 6 1-3 innings.

"I felt good out there," Hermanson said. "I went right after them and they put the ball in play a lot but I felt positive out there."

Wade Boggs, Dave Martinez and Miguel Cairo each had RBI singles for Tampa Bay.

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