SEATTLE — The line that just about every single one of Ichiro Suzuki’s former teammates repeats is that if the Japanese outfielder wanted to be a power hitter, instead of racking up more hits than anyone in professional baseball history, he’d have been one of the best power hitters of all time.
Cal Raleigh wants to be a power hitter. And on the day the Mariners retired Ichiro’s No. 51, he showed it, continuing one of the most explosive power surges by a catcher in baseball history.
Coming to the plate for his second at-bat against Joe Boyle in the Mariners’ 7-4 win over the Rays on Saturday night, Raleigh caught up to Joe Boyle’s 99.6 mph first-pitch fastball and drove it out to left-center for his 44th home run of the season. That moves him ahead of Javy Lopez for third most in a season by a catcher in MLB history, with 43 games left to play in the regular season.
It was the fastest pitch Raleigh’s taken deep in his career.
“With that velo, he just stayed on it so well and drove that ball into the bullpen,” manager Dan Wilson said. “That’s just really good hitting. When you can drive a ball the other way like that, you’ve got to do a lot of things right with your swing. That was just a great AB, a great swing and a great result from us.”
Next up for Raleigh on the list is Hall of Famer Johnny Bench, who hit 45 in 1970. Salvador Perez currently holds the single-season record for homers by a catcher, with 48 in 2021.
Raleigh broke Bench’s record for homers by a catcher before the All-Star break (also set in ’70) with his 29th of the season before the calendar flipped to July. That came just after Bench spoke to USA Today about how much a fan of Raleigh he is.
“Big Dumper” finished the first half with 38 homers, only trailing Barry Bonds’ 39 in his historic 2001 season.
But coming out of the break — and his victory in the Home Run Derby — Raleigh had come out a bit cold, holding a 15-for-77 line at the plate for a .195 average going into Friday night’s series opener against Tampa Bay.
Then he blasted No. 43, arguably one of his most dramatic of the season, in the eighth inning to power the Mariners to a comeback win. Saturday, No. 44 was a sign that the slump may well be in the past.
And it put Raleigh back on his historic pace.
In 1970, Bench hit his 44th home run of the season on Sept. 10 — Cincinnati’s 145th game of the season. Perez, too, got to 44 in Game No. 145 for the Royals. When Ken Griffey Jr. hit 56 home runs in 1997 and 1998, he hit No. 44 in Seattle’s 137th and 129th games, respectively. Raleigh’s ahead of all of them, as Saturday was the Mariners’ 118th game of the year.
Julio Rodríguez didn’t let his teammate have all the fun, starting Seattle’s scoring in the bottom of the first with a two-run homer and following Raleigh’s shot with his second of the night on the very next pitch to make it 6-1. The second of those was a laser into the left-field corner that cleared the wall in 3.28 seconds, the shortest hang time on a homer this year in the Majors and the second shortest for the Mariners in the Statcast Era (since 2015).
“When he finds the barrel, it’s a rocket somewhere,” Wilson said. “… He’s seeing it well and has a really good approach up there right now.”
Seattle’s win — its eighth in nine games since bringing Eugenio Suárez back the day before the Trade Deadline — moved the Mariners within a half-game of the Astros in the AL West race, and put them even with the Red Sox for the first AL Wild Card slot.
The Mariners will wrap up their three-series homestand Sunday with a second straight sweep on their mind and a chance to retake the lead in the division for the first time since June 1, in front of what’s likely to be yet another packed house at T-Mobile Park.
“It was awesome,” Rodríguez said. “It happened last night when Cal hit that home run and we were able to go ahead, and it happened again today. Just the energy. I feel like energy is such a special factor for this game that we play. The way [the fans] have been bringing it lately, it definitely feels special. I just keep encouraging everybody to keep bringing it, because we definitely seem to play better with it.”
