Garrett Mitchell credits walk-off HR to wife's absence (She disagrees!)

April 6th, 2023

Brewers rookie outfielder 's season is off to a great start, but he might have some making up to do with his wife, professional softball player Haley Cruse Mitchell.

In the excitement of his walk-off homer off Mets reliever Adam Ottavino on Wednesday afternoon, the 24-year-old made something that might be considered a marital faux pas -- he assessed that he plays better when his wife isn’t at the ballpark.

“When my wife doesn't show up to the games, usually something good happens,” Mitchell said in a postgame interview on the field. "Going into that at-bat, I was like, 'Man, she's not here, so might as well do something fun.'”

Oops.

Luckily for Mitchell, his wife took her husband’s comment in stride, poking fun at the situation on social media and playfully calling out Mitchell for the dig.

“You won’t say it to my face [though],” Cruse Mitchell, a former member of the Oregon Ducks and current player for the USSSA Pride, tweeted in response, before joking that she'd have to show up in disguise at the next game.

Little did Mitchell know, his wife actually predicted the walk-off before it happened, as she was happy to let everyone know afterward.

“Don’t need to be there to have an impact,” she said in a tweet that included a screengrab showing her calling Mitchell's shot in a text thread.