For the past year or so, the Seattle Mariners have had to maintain a tricky balance. Mitch Haniger was their most established offensive player in 2021, slugging 39 home runs after missing all of the brief 2020 season and much of 2019 with catastrophic freak injury. In 2018, of course, he was the club’s breakout stud, an All-Star whose signature moment on the season was a spectacular game culminating in a walk-off bomb over the Angels.
Last year, in Game 161, he of course got Anaheim again, keeping Seattle’s playoff hopes alive, in a lineup far less deep as the one he finds himself amidst this season.