Raleigh is raging, but he is a one-man show for Mariners

The Mariners’ recent slide has not been fun for manager Dan Wilson, but he says he is still happy with where the team stands at this point in the season

SEATTLE — Cal Raleigh is the best catcher in Major League Baseball right now. Andres Munoz might be the best closer. When healthy, the pitching staff might be the best in the American League.

That’s the good news report on the Seattle Mariners at this point in the season.

Raleigh was the best thing going as usual for the Mariners, accounting for all of their runs in a 4-3 loss to Baltimore Thursday at T-Mobile Park. The 28-year-old switch-hitter had a run-scoring single in the third inning and blasted a two-run homer in the fifth, giving him a major-league leading 24 round-trippers this season.

Raleigh’s big blow, a two-run shot, gave the Mariners a 3-1 lead. In the sixth, however, Baltimore’s Adley Rutschman answered with a two-run homer and Gunnar Henderson followed with a solo shot for a 4-3 lead.

The Mariners never recovered, suffering their eighth loss in the last 11 games. That dropped them to 32-29, a game and a half back of Houston atop the AL West standings.

 “Cal has been awesome,” said centerfielder Julio Rodriguez, who has given way to Raleigh as Seattle’s marquis player. “Whenever I get to see him hit, it is fun to watch. Everybody in the dugout gets crazy every time he hits a bomb. I am amazed at the way he is swinging the bat right now.”

The rest of the Seattle team has been pretty much blah after a hot streak in April and early May.

“We are in a good spot,” Seattle manager Dan Wilson told me before Thursday’s game. “We got off to a really good start, and it has been a quieter period here. We will always strive for more consistency in a lot of different areas, but I am happy with the way things have gone. We have seen this team continue to do what it does, which is fight hard.”

The Mariners actually didn’t get off to a good start. Through the first 10 games, they were 3-7. Then they went on a nice run, going 17-5 over the next 22 games to get to 20-12 and a three-game lead in the division on May 3. They were 29-21 and 3 1/2 games ahead of the Astros when the recent tailspin began.

“I don’t think our problem is hitting,” first baseman Rowdy Tellez said. “Our offense has been pretty good. You can’t maintain a No. 1 offense, or a top-five offense, the entire year. You are going to have peaks and valleys. Overall, we have been pretty good.”

You can make an argument for that. After Thursday action, Seattle was second in the AL in home runs (81) and walks (222), third in home runs (80) and fifth in runs scored (269). But the Mariners are 12th among the 15 teams with a batting average of .236. Over the last 11 games, they have scored 35 runs.

“We have had some ups and downs,” said Rodriguez, who went 0 for 4 with three strikeouts Thursday and saw his average drop to .244. “Hitting just goes that way. We are going to get hot at times and cold at times. That’s the flow of the season. But the team feels pretty solid. We are in the fight for the division title.”

“We have really good pitching,” added Tellez, who is hitting .206 with nine homers and 24 RBIs in 52 games. “At times, they are going to carry us. At times, the offense carries us. You hit rough patches. That’s baseball — 162 games.”

Going into Thursday play, Seattle’s pitching staff was eighth in the AL in ERA at 3.87 and ranked 12th in opponents’ batting average at .258. Three of the members of the starting rotation — Logan Gilbert, George Kirby and Bryce Miller — have missed time due to injuries. Gilbert is still out and rehabbing.

“We have had a number of arms go down, and we are talking about really good pitchers,” Munoz said. “Bryce is back, and Logan will be back soon. I feel like everybody is doing what we have to do. I don’t think there is anything wrong with the staff.”

NEW: The Dean of Portland Sports is now on BlueSky.

After 25 years on the broadcast team of the Mariners, Bill Krueger’s contract was not renewed. The McMinnville native, former University of Portland Pilot and ex-Mariner pitcher continues to closely follow the team and hosts a podcast called “Old School Baseball,” with daily posts on “X.”

“The Mariners are an average team right now,” Krueger said. “The reason they are not a little better, their starting pitching got banged up and they haven’t been able to get it set. Once that happens, they should be good enough offensively.

“What would help is to get another couple of arms in the bullpen. The league has gotten a lot more left-handed. Dan didn’t have any left-handed pitchers last year.”

There is only one southpaw on the 17-man staff this season — reliever Gabe Speier, who has worked 24 1/3 innings in 27 appearances.

The M’s don’t have to worry much about Munoz, the 26-year-old fireballer from Mexico who owns a 1.40 ERA and is tied with the Royals’ Carlos Estevez as AL saves leaders with 17. Munoz set a franchise record by going 23 2/3 innings to begin the season without allowing an earned run. The streak was broken on May 30 when Munoz gave up four hits, including a homer, and three earned runs in the ninth inning of a 12-6, 10-inning loss to the Twins. He then yielded a hit, a walk and an earned run in a 2-1 win over the Twins, a game in which he had a blown save but got the victory.

“I know I have to close games,” Munoz said. “I wasn’t able to get the job done a couple of times. We know that can happen. Sometimes you win; sometimes you lose.”

“Munoz’s streak was remarkable,” Krueger said. “He is not perfect. He gets a little sideways sometimes. His mechanics are not the best. But he has a great makeup, his fastball moves and he has a good slider when he doesn’t try to throw it hard.”

Bryan Woo, who took the loss Thursday, has been the best Seattle starter. Woo, 25, is 5-3 with a 3.07 ERA. After dealing with several injuries the past two seasons, he has stayed healthy. His fastball is hitting 96 mph on a consistent basis, and a 90-mph slider has kept batters off-balance.

“It has been very impressive,” Wilson said. “We weren’t sure what to expect this year, but he has been steady in terms of his results. He has found a nice rhythm to how he approaches the batter, a nice mindset to take to the mound with him.”

The big story in Seattle so far has been the play of Raleigh, the 6-2, 235-pound catcher who has come into his own at age 28 in his fifth season as a Mariner. Raleigh hit 30 and 34 homers in each of the last two seasons, but his batting averages were .232 and .220, respectively.

This season, the “Big Dumper” — I’m not making that up — is hitting .268, second-best among Seattle starters behind shortstop J.P. Crawford. Raleigh is tied for the major league lead with 23 homers and became the first catcher in history to reach the 20-homer mark before June 1. He ranks third in the AL in RBIs with 49, trailing only Boston’s Rafael Devers (54) and the Yankees’ Aaron Judge (50).

In May, Raleigh hit .304 with 12 homers and 26 RBIs and an on-base percentage of .430. He was AL Co-Player of the Week from May 26-June 1, going 8 for 23 with six runs scored, 6 homers and 10 RBIs in a seven-day stretch.

“He has been carrying the team for quite awhile,” Krueger said.

Raleigh is on pace to break the record for four-baggers by a catcher in a season, held by Salvadore Perez of the Royals with 48 in 2021. And the North Carolina native — no, not from Raleigh but Cullowhee, population 5,700 — had played in all 61 games through Thursday.

“It has been a big part of our success,” Wilson said. “He has driven in a lot of runs for us. He is central to that offensive production.

“And it is not just the offense, but what he does defensively with our pitching staff. We have some young guys on our staff who have to step up and he has done an incredible job with them. Cal is the real deal.”

Said Munoz: “Cal is a great catcher. He calls every pitch. We know why he is calling whatever pitch it is. We know how smart he is and how he knows the hitter. We have great trust in him.”

Krueger draws a comparison that would surely make Raleigh smile.

“He is Thurman Munson,” Krueger said. “He is really solid. The players love him and really respect him.

“You see the power, but Cal has polished his hitting up. He has closed some holes. He’s figuring it out. He’ll hit a breaking ball for a home run. His average is up 40 points over his career average; his on-base percentage is up 60.

“He has a chance to break that home run record for catchers, but it is everything else. He plays every day. He is a switch-hitter, a good receiver. He blocks low pitches. He is tough. He plays like an old-school guy. Like Munson.”

Raleigh is a shoo-in for selection for his first All-Star Game next month. He leads MLB catchers in nearly every offensive category.

“Cal is having one of the best seasons in baseball, if not the best,” Tellez said. “He is off to probably the best start in Mariners history.

“It is good to have him in the middle of the lineup every day, but we still need to give him some help from top to bottom. He has been carrying the team.”

Seattle has had two others players win AL Player of the Week awards — infielders Dylan Moore (April 14-20) and Jorge Polanco (April 21-27).

Moore was hitting .300 in late April but has slipped to .256 and is playing primarily against left-handed pitching these days. Polanco — who hit .213 with 16 homers in 118 games for Seattle last season — batted .383 in March and April but .141 since then and is currently hitting .253.

“Polanco was unbelievable the first month and change,” Krueger said. “He made a difference. I don’t know where it came from, because I thought his career was over. Then he comes out of the chute this season like he found the fountain of youth. But he has fallen on hard times.”

So have a number of his teammates. In Thursday’s game against the Orioles, Seattle’s lineup from five through nine were batting .217, .204, .213, .229 and .077. Only shortstop J.P. Crawford (.283) has a better average than Raleigh.

Since 2021, the Mariners have had winning records every season, but they are beginning to go in the wrong direction. They were 90-72 in 2021 and ’22, making the playoffs for the first time since 2001 the latter year. In 2023, Seattle was 88-74, falling just short of the playoffs. They were 85-77 last year.

Wilson was the catcher on that splendid 2001 Mariner team that won 116 regular-season games and should have won a World Series, losing to the Yankees in the ALCS. That Seattle team featured regulars such as Edgar Martinez, Ichiro Suzuki, Mike Cameron, John Olerud and Bret Boone. This year’s Mariners have no such talent, but Wilson — who took over as manager late last season after the firing of Scott Servais — is trying to build something good with the help of Martinez, who is the team’s “hitting strategy coach.”

“Dan is a steady hand, well-respected,” Krueger said. “He knows the game. It is trial by fire for Dan, because he has never managed before. He has been out of the game in the sense that he hasn’t been on the field. It takes time to get that edge back, to be on top of the game.

“But he is great with players, and he is very competitive. The message from Dan and Edgar has been well-received. The strikeouts are down. More balls have been put in play. Dan is doing a great job. I knew in my heart that someday he would be the manager, or maybe general manager. He was going to be something, because he is a gem.”

But he can only do so much with an ineffective offense. Right now, it is the Cal Raleigh show, and very little else.

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