With Angels’ Help, Welch Turns Season Around in a Hurry : Athletics: Cy Young winner picks on one of the teams he dominated last season to pick up his first victory of 1991.

ANAHEIM —  The mighty don’t have to fall far for word of their misfortune to spread far and wide.

In fact, most of the time, the mighty don’t even have to fall.

Bob Welch lost his first start this season, and many thought a repeat of last season’s 27 victories was suddenly a long shot.

Then, against the Angels Monday night, he gave up a couple of runs early on, watching one of them cross the plate on his own wild pitch.

From Cy Young to . . . ?

To 1-1, as it turned out. Welch slipped out of a fourth inning that could have turned ugly, and hung in through eight innings. He gave up two runs on seven hits, and not one of them was to Dave Winfield, the hot hitter of late, who went 0 for four.

Eight innings was long enough for Jose Canseco to come through--as Jose will do--with a three-run homer in the seventh that broke a deadlock and gave Welch the victory in the A’s 5-2 triumph at Anaheim Stadium.

“I’m thinking in the dugout, it would be a good time to pop one,” Welch said.

Canseco obliged.

“Excellent, man,” Welch said. “You like to get that first win. If you don’t get it, you go get it next time.”

Welch won the Cy Young Award last season, leading the majors in victories with a 27-6 record. No one had won that many games since Steve Carlton won 27 for Philadelphia in 1972.

“You’d like to start off right where you were at the end of the season,” Welch said.

Of course, no one will let this one count as No. 28.

“You like to find the things you were doing, get into the same repetition as last year,” he said.

Here’s one string that’s unbroken: Welch was 3-0 in three starts against the Angels last year and has seven victories in his past eight starts against them.

“Hey, they have an excellent ballclub,” Welch said.

They just didn’t accomplish a lot against Welch, who got stronger as Monday’s game went on.

“Once you get your delivery clicking, it’s easier,” he said.

It was the same way in his first start, a 4-1 loss to Minnesota last week in which he pitched a complete game but gave up three earned runs and lost.

But with the first victory under his belt, more should follow.

His career record in April is 25-15. Last April was his best: 3-1 with a 1.06 ERA.

It didn’t look so good for him early Monday, when he allowed a third-inning run to score on a single, two groundouts and Luis Sojo’s flawless bunt.

Nor in the fourth, when he loaded the bases by allowing a single to Dave Parker, grazing Lance Parrish with a pitch, and issuing a two-out walk to Dick Schofield to load the bases before serving up the wild pitch.

“I just shoved it in the dirt,” he said.

With a little help from Canseco--and four more strong innings from Welch--it didn’t matter.

A wonder what a three-run homer can do.

“It does cross my mind,” Welch said.