Cal Raleigh is, apparently, unbeatable.
Raleigh went on the injured list Thursday for the first time in his career. He had been dealing with “regular soreness” in his right side since early May, but appeared to aggravate it a few plays into the eighth inning of Wednesday’s 4-3 loss to the Astros. There is no timeline for his return.
With the game tied 2-2, with no outs, and Braden Shewmake at first base, Brice Matthews attempted a sacrifice bunt. The ball bounced back to Mariners reliever Eduard Bazardo, who lofted it into center field. Fighting for the ball, Julio Rodríguez took it back toward the infield, took it near the edge of the dirt, and fired home, but Josh Naylor cut it off before it got there because Shewmake was caught at third. However, while in position to throw the ball, Raleigh made a poor shuffle, appearing to correct his already sore side. He winced in great pain, but stayed in the game.
Bazardo then hit Zach Cole to load the bases, bringing the Mariners into the infield. Christian Vázquez followed with a hard chopper to shortstop JP Crawford, who looked to be starting a double play with a hard throw home. But as he tried to turn, Raleigh’s leg went out from under him. He hit the ground with the ball in hand, and left after the inning.
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Raleigh will get photos Friday when the team returns to Seattle. The official name is “right oblique strain,” which was not always recognized despite weeks of concern. Raleigh had been off the roster late on May 2, sitting out what was described at the time as “general pain.” The Mariners are usually forthcoming about the type of injury a player is dealing with, so their lack of clarity on the matter was notable. The night before, Raleigh took a foul ball square in the mask and another in his cup…which he admitted, insisting hitters take every day. He rarely gets bored, but he rarely misses time. Raleigh later told Lookout Landing that it was actually her side that was bothering her, and she didn’t know how or when it happened. He sat out three games and the Mariners played a man down.
Upon his return, Raleigh found himself in the middle of an 0-for stretch that would eventually reach 43 plate appearances. He broke the news on Tuesday with a single, showing joy as his teammates celebrated.
That clip impressed me, as I’m not sure I’ve seen Raleigh smile all season. The big, toothy grins are more typical of Raleigh, who has always been more serious than, say, Rodríguez, but he seemed more depressed at the start of 2026, often looking for answers that weren’t there.
It started before the injury. Raleigh has posted a 59 wRC+ through April 19 with very little power. However, for a while, it looked like he was out of it, hitting five runs in seven games by the end of the month. Then the 0-for started, then the pain followed, then the 0-for continued, and now it will last a few weeks. Raleigh will return from the injured list with a 63 wRC+, a .289 xwOBA, a 31.5% strikeout rate, and a 10.9% HR/FB rate.
Of course, what has plagued Raleigh this year is not visible. Again, he did not report the damage until his line was already underwater. Maybe it bothered him longer than he’s letting on (he played most of 2022 with a broken thumb), or maybe it didn’t. But there’s no obvious sign of the injury slowing down his bat speed or run speed, yet he’s down significantly in all performance indicators, as Mike Petriello recently reported on MLB.com.
My sense is that Raleigh’s struggles in the first quarter of the season have a lot to do with timing. He’s getting too deep in the zone, and he’s too behind fastballs. For batters with an extreme pull-side uppercut, even a slight drop in timing can turn homers into whiffs and weak fly pops. Some attribute this all to his tumultuous run at the World Baseball Classic, but that seems unlikely, as many of his WBC teammates and opponents are having incredible seasons. I think this happens sometimes with players who rely on three real results.
In Raleigh’s absence, Mitch Garver will get more playing time behind the plate. He signed with Seattle back in 2024 to be the starting DH, and ended up as a backup catcher when he retired from the full-time job. The Mariners brought him back this offseason — at Raleigh’s behest, actually — and he has a 95 wRC+ in 65 plate appearances. Jhonny Pereda will back up Garver.
As Raleigh went down, so did the Mariners. I wrote in March that the Mariners, behind Raleigh and Rodríguez, had the best chance in the American League to advance to the World Series. They weren’t the best team in the league by fantasy MPI, but on paper, they were a good team, well-coordinated and held back by a weak team.
The Mariners are now 22-23 and struggling to find a footing without their top slugger. Still, they’re just a game behind the Athletics in first place in the AL West, and because no one seems interested in capitalizing on Seattle’s slow start, as John Trupin recently pointed out at Lookout Landing, the team’s chances of winning the division haven’t changed:
It’s worth noting that the Mariners have played better than their record suggests. And in general, more has gone right than wrong so far. Randy Arozarena is a trademark hitter in the middle, with a 146 wRC+ (backed by a .388 BABIP) and 1.6 WAR through the first 45 games. Brendan Donovan has a wRC+ of 152 since being acquired in a trade this offseason, despite missing nearly three weeks with a groin injury. Crawford has a wRC+ of 119 despite operating below his threshold (although the less said about his defensive metrics the better). Rodríguez’s 117 wRC+ dispelled the (often false) perception of his first-half struggles, especially if summer surgery is in his future. And Luke Raley’s all-or-nothing approach is set to “all” for now; he has hit 10 home runs (including four since I wrote about him last week). The Mariners’ bullpen has struggled on the short side (also defensively), but overall they have the majors’ sixth-best wRC+ (107) and ninth-best MPI (5.8).
The reduction has generally been good, too. The rotation has pitched the most innings in the majors and sits a respectable eighth in WAR. Much of that is thanks to Emerson Hancock, whose early success stemmed from a fundamental shift in skill, as Michael Rosen explained last month. Bryan Woo, George Kirby, and Logan Gilbert have been healthy and good, even if their annual performances have yet to take them to that elusive next level. And Bryce Miller, who I often consider the team’s biggest talent, came back from the injured list (again) on Wednesday with his best speed yet.
The bullpen also showed more depth than ever. Currently, Seattle is without Gabe Speier (shoulder inflammation), Matt Brash (minor lat soreness), and Jose A. Ferrer (paternity leave). And I wrote for Lookout Landing last week about the pros and cons of Andrés Muñoz’s fastball shape. But the so-called “bulk” options this year are very reliable, and they are not asked to do much.
So the Mariners are finally what we thought they would be: Well-rounded, imperfect, and possibly the best team in the AL West. Most good teams spend large chunks of the year tip-toeing around .500, and nothing here looks out of the ordinary for a team aiming for 85-90 wins. I suspect their best days are yet to come.
But those days will be hard to come by now without Raleigh. The IL tour was truly disappointing following his stellar 2025 campaign, in which he hit 60 hits, won the Home Run Derby, led the Mariners deep into the postseason, and forced us all to rethink and rethink and rethink the true value of catching. It often seemed last year that he was invincible, or at least indestructible, rising to levels of performance and celebrity that should be impossible for the self-effacing Raleigh. Now, for the first time in his career, he will have a chance to pause, relax, sit in that big dumper and think about what’s next.
