Former Ranger delivers death knell in the rubber game of Seattle series

Well, that's about as good and as tight of a three-game series as you will see in Major League baseball. Unfortunately for the hometown Texas Rangers, they came up on the short end, losing two of three extra-inning games over the weekend.

If it had to be anybody to seal the Rangers' fate, at least it was former Ranger catcher and World Series Champion Mitch Garver who delivered the knockout haymaker with a Ruthian homerun into the second deck of the left field stands at Globe Life Park

Mitch Garver destroyed a fastball to ostensibly seal the Rangers' fate in the rubber game

Rangers reliever Cole Winn grooved a middle-up, middle-in fastball to Mitch Garver, and the powerful right-handed hitter got all of it, sending it 437 feet, padding the Mariners' lead from 4-3 to a very comfortable 6-3 in the top of the 12th inning.

The Rangers got a sacrifice fly from Seager, who had homered earlier in the bottom of the 10th to tie the game at 3 and extend the proceedings, but it wasn't enough as the Rangers lost 6-4 in 12 innings.

Garver had a smirk on his face as he rounded third during his home run trot

As he passed Rangers' third sacker Josh Jung three-fourths of the way through his free trip around the bases, the cameras caught a great shot of Garver smirking as if he had maybe exchanged a few playful words with his former teammates as they could only watch as he put the game out of reach. He ended the day going 3-6 with 4 RBIs, including the coup de gras in extras.

In Garver's second full season since leaving Arlington for Seattle for a two-year $24 million deal to be a back-up catcher to Ranger killer Cal Raleigh, he is hitting .227 with 4 homers and 20 RBI. None were as sweet as the two against his former team on Sunday afternoon.