Shallow Cal

 

The good news is that last week, Cal Raleigh returned to form with a 3-homer day against the Philadelphia Phillies, bringing him to 18 homers and 52 RBIs in a shortened, maligned season. The bad news is everything else.

People have made the claim that the lack of Cal Raleigh's better numbers have led to the decline of the Mariners this year, and I'm not at liberty to disagree. The pitching has been very good, Arozarena's having a terrific year, there's still stars in this lineup, but without Raleigh, the weight is gone. Julio tried carrying this team for a bit, Josh Naylor did before he started hitting, Cole Young did, but it all felt imbalanced. By the time Cal got back and started hitting it was too late. The Mariners are hitting .228 as a unit, and the pitching now has a 4.13 ERA cumulatively because even Kirby and Woo are struggling at this point, without even mentioning the bullpen. The playoffs are more and more of a fantasy unless the AL West picture changes drastically, as they are still only 4 games back from the division. Right now though, the losses really are piling up, and there have been some huge losses in the past week. Yesterday was Kade Anderson's second start, and while I'm writing this before the game's actually happened, I sincerely hope the Mariners didn't ruin it for him. But there's always this idea that they could. 

The Raleigh thing may even stem back to the World Baseball Classic, where he was really weird about turning down a handshake to Randy Arozarena despite the fact that they're literally teammates. Like, you don't need to keep kayfabe, this isn't even Olympics level stuff, it's a friendly tourney for bragging rights. The idea is that this ruined his clubhouse goodwill, despite what interviews have said, and him getting off to a horrible start this year didn't exactly help that. He's now hitting .165, which is *better*, but after last season, it's not exactly a strong mark, especially going forward trying to make the Mariners a league superpower. And so the idea of 'was this a fluke' is now circling. The Mariners have had a lot of sure things fade upon entry, including Kyle Lewis, Jarred Kelenic, Evan White and Ben Williamson. The worry is that Cal Raleigh, despite how amazing he's been the last few years, might be headed to that category. I personally do not think he is, I think this is just a rough season, but in baseball things really can turn that quickly.

And so there's already the thought of 'if Cal Raleigh can't carry this team, who can?' Cole Young is already a really sharp young star, he's a contact hitter with excellent infield defense, I think he's a sure bet for a while. Kade Anderson seems to be the real deal, and was as MLB-ready as everyone was thinking. The idea is that Cole Emerson is gonna come into his own and relieve J.P. Crawford of his duties, which might be a little overdue honestly. Now there's the idea of Brock Rodden as a corner infield guy, and if he starts hitting that'll be even better. Naylor's here for a while, as are Julio and Cal. I'm not thinking Randy Arozarena is gonna stick around given the option to stay in free agency [Scott Boras is his agent after all], but hopefully there's enough that can be done to patch this up. 

I think 2026 was very much a harsh lesson for the Mariners, one that still isn't completely unsalvageable but is in danger of being so. If they don't pick back up next season and reverse the narrative, the 2025 season may be a grave 'what could have been' in a history of rotten luck.

Coming Tonight: With how his season started, I did not expect this guy to be such an important piece of this Diamondbacks team hitting the stretch.

One Missed Cal

 

Lot of law firm guys in the bigs these days. Emerson Hancock, Hurston Waldrep, Warming Bernabel. Just put an ampersand in between any of those and you're in business. 

Anyway, the Mariners have overcome a rough start by putting together an extremely even team. In the past it's been either all pitching or all hitting, here both sides are doing their part. There have been well-pitched months from Emerson Hancock, George Kirby, Logan Gilbert and Bryan Woo, in addition to welcome production from Randy Arozarena, Julio Rodriguez and Cole Young, the latter finally cementing himself as a worthy piece of this team. Brendan Donovan just came off the IL and is getting back to his old tricks as a contact bat. And even on a night where Hancock gets rocked a bit, you can't entirely count him out because most of his other starts he can go 6 strong without giving up many runs. After years of faulty appearances, seeing a more composed, confident version of Hancock is a welcome sight, especially alongside a healthier version of George Kirby. 

Now...there's a fundamental flaw in this team, and it's one that could be avoided over time but is worrying people already. This is a 2020s Mariners team, and everyone is performing pretty well...except for Cal Raleigh.

Raleigh is months removed from his coronation, his biggest season yet, and one of the best hitting seasons from a catcher since the 50s. To his credit, he has 7 home runs and 18 RBIs, which isn't terrible. But the multifaceted Raleigh who could also hit for contact and rely on assets other than power hasn't really shown up. He's hitting .175 with twice as many strikeouts as hits. The accuracy and power Raleigh showed frequently in 2025 has been sparse this year, and it's in a year where the team thought they could finally rely on him to lead things. Not that Julio and Randy CAN'T per se, but more is falling on them than previously figured, and it's a bit awkward at times.

Raleigh insists there's a larger issue, and he's sat a bit dealing with that thumb trouble, but hopefully it's as simple as that. Say the thumb heals and the rough patch continues. What then? What needs to be reassessed? 

The M's are good enough now that they can balance the work elsewhere, but they're being kept out of first by the A's. This division was supposed to be theirs, and it's been closer than they'd like. Hopefully they have it in them to pull away again this year, but with Raleigh struggling it's been put into question.

Coming Tonight: The opposite of Superman. He puts on glasses and becomes unstoppable.

Ending the Drought

 

It's funny, last night in Green Bay, the Packers made history by drafting a wide receiver in the first round for the first time since 2002. A drought like that is a really big deal, and it's a turnaround for a team that's found other means of producing great receivers [as Davante Adams can tell you]. There's not a lot of comparable droughts in sports, at least to that level.

I will put into the same category the Mariners' feat of, from 2004 til 2022, failing to provide an above-average starting catching option. Because you can tell the story as simply as 'after Dan Wilson retired it took a while until Cal Raleigh' showed up, but it's way more complicated than that. On so many occasions, the Mariners thought they had a guy. In 2006 they sign Kenji Johjima, who has maybe one decent season and then trails off tremendously. In 2012, they trade for Jesus Montero, the Yankees' top catching prospect, and he never matches up to his 18-game call-up from 2011, consistently missing the mark and never reaching his full potential. In 2013, the Mariners call up Mike Zunino, and place an unnecessary amount of confidence in the guy, even trading away Welington Castillo in order to keep him as a starting option. Aside from one surprise smash of a 2017 season, he's subpar both offensively and defensively, and routinely hits below the Mendoza line. In 2019 they finally have a great catching option in Omar Narvaez, but immediately trade him away so they can start Austin Nola, who they also trade away. Only a portion of this is luck, and a lot of this is the Mariners thinking they know better and not knowing a damn thing.

Which is why it's been so satisfying seeing Cal Raleigh not only be the answer in Seattle at catcher, but become one of the team's best players. I saw the Mariners play the Yankees last year, and in the midst of what was ultimately a Yankee runaway, Cal Raleigh still absolutely murdered a ball deep to right and gave some insurance runs. And that's why Raleigh isn't always the biggest WAR guy, he's always the guy who goes deep when they're trailing by a lot. He's figuring out how to be the game winner, and thus his stats are trending upwards. So far he has a league-leading 9 home runs, 16 RBIs, a 1.1 WAR and some decent, if diminished, defensive play. He has been 'the guy' more often than not for this Mariners team, though Dylan Moore, J.P. Crawford and Randy Arozarena [who leads the AL in steals with 8] are coming through more and more lately. Crawford having a bounce-back offensive season would be appreciated by everyone I think. 

The issue for the Mariners at the moment is that the rotation, by and large, isn't quite as untouchable as it was last season. Many of the chief starters' ERAs, including Miller and Castillo, are in the 4 zone, and you're seeing more losses pile up on them. It does help that the team is hitting, and hitting well, but it remains a tragedy that they couldn't start doing that while the rotation was as unhittable as it was. They're still good, and Logan Gilbert is off to yet another great start, but there's limits. Emerson Hancock may not be the answer to that fifth spot as George Kirby deals with an injury. Maybe Jhonathan Diaz is? He's worth a shot. 

This is a better, more fearsome Mariners team, even if Julio hasn't completely landed yet and there are minor pitching issues. This team can stay in the race all year, and hopefully Raleigh can be the guy to lead them deeper.

Coming Tomorrow- Ironically a former Mariner, one who may be having a bit more luck away from that rotation.

Raleigh House

 

There's a reason why a lot of the conversation regarding the Seattle Mariners has mostly concerned the starting pitching. Mostly, the starting pitching is why they're in 1st place. The whole rotation has an ERA under 4, Gilbert and Castillo are among the best pitchers in baseball at the moment, and even bringing Bryan Woo back has resulted in a 0.93 ERA in 2 games. Though the double-digit losses have piled up in May, the rotation isn't exactly contributing to that often. 

The other reason is that so many of the hitters just haven't gotten things going.

It's a ton more evident without Jarred Kelenic, Teoscar Hernandez and Eugenio Suarez just how quiet this Mariners lineup is now. Some of the moves that people thought were so smart in January, like snagging Jorge Polanco and Mitch Garver, have not amounted to much. Even the Luke Raley deal, which at least has Raley hitting .275 with 11 RBIs, isn't looking great solely because of how excellent Jose Caballero's been in Tampa. And look, some of the 'hey, these lower key guys have got it covered' decisions have paid off, like Josh Rojas, who's hitting .319 right now, and Dylan Moore, who's been excellent covering for J.P. Crawford. But you see a lot of guys hitting like .211, people like Mitch Haniger, Ty France and Dominic Canzone, many of whom should be carrying more of the load. Even Julio Rodriguez is doing 'just okay' right now, hitting .266 with 13 RBIs and 44 hits. His power numbers are down, and he's only doing so much so far.

Cal Raleigh has been making up a ton of the work, and on one hand, that's awesome. Raleigh's a great defensive catcher who can also clutch hit and crack homers, he's a great multifaceted piece. Right now, Raleigh's the best hitter on the team. Trouble is, this Mariners team was designed so that it wouldn't HAVE to be somebody like Raleigh saving the lineup. That's what Julio, Crawford and France are for, AND Polanco. You shouldn't have that many great hitters letting you down and leaving it to the catcher, who'd normally be batting like 5th if this was a normal team. 

It is fantastic that the Mariners are a first place team. I would love for it to keep happening, and for them to build on this. But right now, they're in first because A.) their rotation hasn't fallen apart, and B.) they had a much better start than Houston. The Astros have been getting so much better in the last week, and while it would be so anticlimactic for the Astros to lap Seattle anyway, Seattle needs to work on preventing that from happening. They've got a 10-game road trip, and are currently facing a very tough Orioles team. Next after that is a series in the Bronx, which I'll be heading in to see a game of. And then the Nationals, a team they can no doubt beat once or twice. 

The trick is for some hitters other than Cal Raleigh to start impressing me. And that shouldn't be asking for a lot given this team's power-hitting history. But right now it sure seems like it.

Coming Tomorrow- A powerful hitter for a team that just keeps getting bad news. 

Eleventh Hour Raleigh

 

Remember back at the end of June when the Mariners were 38-42, and we all sort of went 'well so much for that'?

For the second season in a row, the Seattle Mariners have used a huge August to catapult themselves back into the conversation and absolutely annihilate the competition. And yes, typically I am not a fan of a team coming from the depths of the division to take first, because it does tamper with the narrative that's been going the whole year, in this case the Rangers and their multi-run games. But...the Rangers ran out of steam. They stopped the 10+ run stuff after early June. They were in danger of the Astros lapping them. And while they got hot a few weeks ago, they couldn't hang onto that, got swept by the Brewers, and are dropping like a stone. Even if the divisional narrative has belonged to them, they've done nothing to conserve that.

At the same time, the Mariners solved a ton of their internal issues, somehow won the Paul Sewald trade by getting Josh Rojas to hit, got solid production out of Suarez and Hernandez finally, and, AND...gave Julio enough space to let him get back to his 2022 tricks without pressure. That insane stretch he had last week, where he was outhitting everybody and carrying the whole team on his back? That was 2022 Julio again. And now that the kid's got 82 RBIs, 35 steals, 22 homers and a 4.8 WAR, the center of this team has been restored.

Now so many of the pieces that made the 2022 team a force have been added back. Cal Raleigh certainly wasn't awful earlier this year, but he did take a little while to get back to what he was doing. He currently leads the team in home runs with 25; kinda odd that he's the home run king on a team with Geno Suarez and Teoscar Hernandez, but happy he's stayed as good of a power hitter. I was worried he was just a one-dimensional replacement guy last year, but Raleigh might be the Mariners' safest, most consistent catching option since Dan Wilson. And remember, this is a team who's always struggled with catchers; sometimes they're good defensively and can't hit [Kenji Johjima], sometimes they're good hitters that can't catch [Jesus Montero], sometimes they can't do a single damned thing [Mike Zunino]. Cal Raleigh is decent defensively, excellent offensively and can hit for power. That is range.

It is nice to have these defensive pieces, like Jose Caballero and Cade Marlowe, coming in and aiding the team as it continues to power-hit the shit out of everybody. And it does say something, considering how noticeably strong power teams the Rangers and Astros are, that the Mariners have caught fire and made it to the top at all. You've got league-wide home run contenders on those teams, Garcia and Tucker, and the Ms don't have anybody with over 25; all you have are just a widespread array of power hitters that can all come through for you, and that does not go unnoticed.

The Mariners' stay at 1st base may not be permanent, considering that the Astros won a game with 17 runs today, and logic dictates they're probably gonna try and make their way towards first again. But I do think this M's team has a lot going for them, and they've turned this team into a very fitting and satisfying sequel to the team that broke the playoff streak. Plus, with series' against the A's and Mets coming up, the baseball gods want the Mariners to keep this going for as long as they can, and I hope they do.

Coming Tonight- The Blue Jays had no room for him to play. The Diamondbacks, on the other hand, needed catching help.

Wild Card Day 1 Observations: Karmic Retribution at Work

 

I think one of the ultimate goals this postseason for the teams that don't always dominate recent postseasons to do well. You know, I am very worried that we could have another year where the same few teams, like the Astros, Rays, Dodgers, Cardinals and Braves make it all the way [yes, I can hear you saying 'What about the Yankees?'], and I'd love to see the sort of underdog teams that don't always make it here have nice Octobers and start new regimes. And judging by the first day of the Wild Card series', I think we are seeing some of that at work.

I mean, I think the most traditional modern-day postseason team that won yesterday was probably Cleveland. They've been a perennial postseason team, even if they haven't had much luck since 2016. And now that they've let the kids come up and dominate the team along with Ramirez, they come off as fresh underdogs again. So, seeing them pummel the Rays a bit was fun. I've talked at length about why I don't like the Rays this season [I'll give ya a hint, it has to do with Jason Adam, Jeffrey Springs, Jalen Beeks and Ryan Thompson], but I also don't like how they just waltz into the playoffs without having a particularly durable or efficient team. It was a very simple game, but I'm glad Ramirez got the better of the Rays' pitching, and I hope this team can do it again today. 

So...I watched almost the entirety of the Phillies-Cardinals game yesterday. Thrilling stuff if ya love pitching and defense. I watched every single hit Philly ball go to a Cardinals outfielder, and I watched a few Cardinals balls go unanswered for a bit until Juan Yepez stepped up to bat, I audibly went 'oh no' and he blasted one to Mars. Fun stuff. So I run out to pick up some food in the top of the ninth, come back and it's 6-2 Phils. I was extremely confused. I had basically resigned myself to a Philly loss, and was just looking forward to what Aaron Nola would be doing today, but...sure enough, the Phils got hits off of Ryan Helsley and small-balled their way to a win. Which means I should get food during the game more often. I'm glad the heroes can be people like Bryson Stott, David Robertson, Brandon Marsh and Alec Bohm. Proof that it doesn't have to just be the big guys. Hoping for a big Game 2 as well.

...Bless the Seattle Mariners, man. They've been waiting 21 years for this, they come in there and absolutely throttle a team that people were saying would be a postseason lock all year. Not that the Blue Jays didn't try, but the Ms had Luis Castillo throwing smoke, Raleigh and Suarez having fun at the plate, and so many elements clicking into place now. My uncle's a Mariners guy, and though he watched the game with baited breath, he's gotta be relieved that this team can work in October. I hope it lasts longer than this one game.

And then...the upset of the night, not counting inning 9 in St. Louis. Max Scherzer, one of the best pitchers in baseball, being too hurt to hold down the Padres lineup. Josh Bell, Jurickson Profar, Trent Grisham and Manny Machado all took him yard, and made everybody rethink their postseason predictions. Even if the Mets' bullpen was pretty strong afterwards, and there were signs of life thanks to Eduardo Escobar, the Padres looked phenomenal last night, and Yu Darvish looked absolutely untouchable. The Padres need to prove that they can stop the Mets consistently, as the Mets will be putting up deGrom today against Blake Snell, which looks like a winning matchup for New York. If the Padres win today, the Mets fans' passive aggressive anger will be through the roof.

I hope we get some more fun games today. Would love to see some teams advance, especially Philly.

Raleigh the Troops

 

The AL West, once again, has become 'is anybody in their right mind going to try and stop the Astros?'. And so far it's gone badly for the Angels, badly for the Rangers and...well it hasn't really gone at all for the A's. Which leaves the Mariners. The Mariners the last few years have gotten very hot in August and September yet haven't made the playoffs in any of those tries. Could this year be different? Armed with Robbie Ray, Julio Rodriguez and Cal Raleigh, could this be the year they actually have a shot?

...Maybe?

Look, is this the best of these teams to make a run of things recently? I'd honestly say no. I'd honestly say the 2021 squad, which still had Kyle Seager, a slightly more productive Jarred Kelenic and Jake Fraley, had more depth and more people on. Not that this team is bad, it's just...more centralized. You're relying on a very small group of people, a small core of Rodriguez, France, Crawford, Suarez and Raleigh, and you just hope that Jesse Winker, Adam Frazier, Abraham Toro or Sam Haggerty can show flashes of last season at any point. The good news is that Carlos Santana has been a pretty potent upgrade at DH, but now you're throwing people like Toro or Justin Upton into an empty OF spot and just hoping they can do something. I think Upton's cooked, but I don't know when he'll admit that. It's really turning into a hope that Mitch Haniger can make it back before the season's been really lost.

A surprise this year has been Cal Raleigh, who's made a catching job that was supposed to be Tom Murphy's into his own. While he's been flirting with the Mendoza line recently, he does have 11 homers and 31 RBIs, and that's not too shabby at all. Will he finally be an above-average catcher that sticks around in Seattle? We will have to see, but I do get a good vibe from Raleigh, especially this season.

Also, though I did say that past Mariners teams have looked more competitive, the rotation core of Robbie Ray, Chris Flexen, Logan Gilbert and Marco Gonzales is pretty awesome. Yes, Gonzales's record leaves a bit to be desired, but Ray's striking people out, Gilbert's a dominant ace, and Flexen just had a beautiful start earlier today, keeping runs down without having to strike many people out at all. I'm puzzled as to what they want to do with the fifth spot, as George Kirby was doing pretty well before they brought him down, but I hope it's something they're alright with.

The Mariners are only a few games over .500, and 4 games above the Rangers, but they do have something of a shot if they can coast a bit this month and make some waves towards the end of the season. With Julio looking like a star, France healthy again and so many pieces working, this seems like a team that could [possibly] break that 21 year drought.

Coming Tomorrow- A rookie in San Francisco with a familiar name.