The hours before each baseball game are sacred to Mitch Haniger. They aren’t a time to be spent relaxing and checking his phone. They aren’t a time to have random conversations with teammates. They are a time for work.
Those hours are meant for preparation — pregame lifting and stretching, hitting in the cage, treatment on his body, studying that night’s pitcher via scouting report and video and anything else he can do to be ready when that first pitch is thrown.
It’s like this every day for the intensely serious Haniger.
“He’s a perfectionist,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said.