ARLINGTON, Texas \u2014 What a swing.<\/p>\n
Dom Canzone dropped his bat instantly. He knew what he\u2019d just done, and so did everyone else inside Globe Life Field.<\/p>\n
Canzone\u2019s three-run home run in the seventh inning flipped the score and flipped his club\u2019s fortunes in this series \u2014 and, perhaps, beyond \u2014 giving the Mariners<\/a> their first lead in this series and sending them to a 6-4 victory over the Texas Rangers on Sunday afternoon.\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s not a stretch to suggest Canzone\u2019s blast \u2014 a dead-pull 400-foot shot to right field, 111.0 mph off the bat against Texas reliever Cole Winn \u2014 was the most important swing of the season for the Mariners, who were, to be frank, an out-of-sorts mess<\/a> coming into Sunday.<\/p>\n Canzone\u2019s swing might have sparked the Mariners\u2019 most important win of the season, too.<\/p>\n Over the previous five days, the M\u2019s had fallen from first to third place in the AL West. They\u2019d lost four straight, saw one of their beloved hitting coaches dismissed<\/a> and looked largely uncompetitive in the first two games of this series against a division rival.<\/p>\n The emotional swing Canzone\u2019s homer provided to the Mariners probably can\u2019t be fully realized now. We\u2019ll need to see how the this team respond in the coming days and weeks.<\/p>\n If nothing else, though, Canzone offered a chance to exhale \u2014 a moment to celebrate, to relax, after a challenging few days, and a challenging week ahead.<\/p>\n It was Canzone\u2019s team-leading 16th homer of the season, and it could not have come at a better time.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Mariners, the worst offense in baseball the past six weeks, had hit just 28 homers in their previous 34 games.<\/p>\n For a team that has, over the past handful of years, relied on homers as much as any team for run production, it has been a rather shocking downturn in slugging.<\/p>\n