As a longtime Mariners fan going back to the days of Julio Cruz and Ruppert Jones, this tidbit blows me away: This was Haniger's second walk-off home run in June; Griffey hit only one with the Mariners. Sounds impossible, but the mind plays funny tricks with memories and Griffey didn't actually hit the 15 walk-off home runs that I distinctly remember.
Anyway, it gets to one reason the Mariners keep winning those close games: They've been super clutch, Haniger in particular. He has 16 home runs and ranks second in the majors to J.D. Martinez with 52 RBIs, but the impressive part has been his performance in high-leverage situations. Entering the day, Haniger was hitting .327/.424/.633 in high-leverage situations via Baseball-Reference.com, and he ranked 10th in the majors in win probability added. Eleven of his 16 home runs have come in the seventh inning or later, including five in high-leverage situations (only Eddie Rosario with five and Martinez with six have that many).
Those five home runs:
April 13: Down 3-2 to the A's in the seventh, hits three-run homer off Chris Hatcher. Mariners win 7-4.
April 22: Down 5-2 to the Rangers in the seventh, hits two-run shot off Matt Bush. Mariners lose 7-4.
May 20: Down 2-0 to the Tigers in ninth, ties score with two-run homer off Shane Greene. Mariners win in 11.
June 1: Hits walk-off homer in bottom of 13th off Matt Andriese to beat the Rays.
June 13: Hits walk-off homer to beat the Angels.
Furthermore, Haniger hit a tying home run in the eighth against the Rangers on April 20, although that one only shows up as a medium-leverage situation (seems like a higher-leverage moment than down three runs). The Mariners then scored four in the ninth to win 6-2.
It's not just Haniger, however. Check out the top five teams in OPS in high-leverage situations entering Wednesday compared to their overall OPS:
Red Sox: .846 (plus 60 points)
Yankees: .843 (plus 51 points)
Mariners: .838 (plus 86 points)
Braves: .831 (plus 73 points)
Indians: .790 (plus 33 points)
(It's a big drop from the Indians to the Pirates at .755.)
So it's that "clutch" hitting that helps explain why the Mariners are 20 games over .500 despite a run differential of just plus-27 runs.
Marlins sweep Giants: Tough series in Miami so far for the Giants:
Monday: Madison Bumgarner gets ejected and they blow a 5-4 lead when the Marlins score three in the seventh, with J.T. Realmuto hitting the go-ahead home run off Sam Dyson.
Tuesday: Trevor Richards earns his first major league win as he and three relievers hold the Giants to three hits.
Wednesday: The Marlins win 5-4 with runs in the eighth and ninth. Brian Anderson walked leading off the eighth against Dyson and scored the tying run, then knocked in the winning run with a sacrifice fly.
The series finale is Thursday before the Giants head to Dodger Stadium for the weekend. They have one of the biggest home/road splits in the majors: 19-11 at home, 14-24 on the road. After the Dodgers series, they have a nice 10-game homestand against the Marlins, Padres and Rockies. Time to make a run.
Evan Gattis, RBI machine: Gattis had five RBIs on Tuesday. He had five RBIs on Wednesday. Sounds pretty cool? It is! He's the first player in Astros history with at least five RBIs in back-to-back games. A quick search on Baseball-Reference reveals this is only the 34th time since 1908 a player has had at least five RBIs in consecutive games. The last to do it was Maikel Franco on June 22-23, 2015, when he hit three home runs in two games as a rookie at Yankee Stadium and everyone immediately predicted he'd turn into a big star.
And, yes, Griffey was one of the previous 33 to do it, with the Mariners in 1999. (You have to give me some props here: Working Ken Griffey Jr. into three separate notes is a pretty awesome achievement in its own right.)
No player has ever had three straight five-RBI games.
And finally ... A dog, a ball and a video:
And ... of course I can link Griffey to this item. Here's a story about him and his beloved Rottweiler, Akiba.