Marc Rzepczynski didn’t need to watch. The reliever knew, just knew, his eighth-inning pitch to the Rangers’ Joey Gallo on Sunday had been crushed for still another tiebreaking, spirit-sapping home run.
“There was no doubt,” Rzepczynski said. “If you saw my reaction, I put my head down and went, ‘Oh...I can’t say what I said in my head, but I thought for sure it was a homer.”
When Rzepczynski mustered the stomach to inspect the damage, he saw Mitch Haniger make a precisely timed leap to catch the ball over the right field wall. As the Safeco Field crowd acknowledged Haniger’s effort with a standing ovation, Rzepczynski pointed his left index finger toward the acrobat in the outfield.