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Seattle Mariners

Mariners’ Cal Raleigh wins AL player of the month after 11 HRs in June

Cal Raleigh of the Seattle Mariners celebrates hitting a solo home run during the ninth inning against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field on Saturday, June 21, 2025, in Chicago. (Getty Images)
By Tim Booth Seattle Times

SEATTLE – A day after being named an All-Star starter for the first time in his career, Cal Raleigh added another award to his record season.

Raleigh was named American League Player of the Month for June for the first time in his career Thursday, becoming just the second Mariner honored with the award in the past 10 years.

Raleigh finished the month batting .300 with six doubles, 11 home runs and 27 RBIs, slugging .690 with a 1.088 OPS in 26 games. Raleigh led the AL in RBIs, slugging percentage, OPS and was tied for the league lead in homers with Jo Adell of the Angels.

Raleigh’s 33rd homer of the season came in the final game of June on Monday night and landed him in a group including Ken Griffey Jr. (1998), Sammy Sosa (1998), Mark McGwire (1998) and Barry Bonds (2001) as the only players to reach that mark before the end of June in baseball history.

He was named AL Player of the Week for June 16-22 when he hit five homers and drove in 12 runs during the six games that week.

“It’s nice to see your hard work pay off on a bigger stage and not just trying to play as well as I can, trying to get the Mariners out there as well. Trying to boost us up as well,” Raleigh said Wednesday after the All-Star announcement. “Try to get us on a bigger stage and trying to help our kind of brand in the sense of we are winning baseball club, we have a good team over here.”

Raleigh is the first Mariner named player of the month since Julio Rodríguez in August 2023 when he batted .429 with seven homers and 30 RBIs, including a four-game stretch in which he had an MLB-record 17 hits. At the time, Rodríguez was the first Mariner to be named player of the month since Nelson Cruz in April 2015.

Sunday pitching showdown

Sunday is shaping up to be a tasty pitching matchup for the finale of the homestand.

The Pirates announced Thursday that Paul Skenes will start the final game of the three-game weekend series and be opposed by George Kirby.

There was uncertainty if Skenes would end up pitching in Seattle or if he’d be held until Monday, when the Pirates open a series in Kansas City. But the Pirates decided to keep Skenes on normal rest, which means the righty will get the chance to pitch in Seattle.

Skenes is getting the Félix Hernández treatment in his second season with the Pirates. He’s got a 4-7 record, but a 2.03 ERA and has 115 strikeouts in 111 innings pitched this season. Twice this season, Skenes has pitched eight innings and allowed one earned run and took the loss.

Sounds rather Félix-like.

Skenes did pitch against the M’s last season in Pittsburgh, allowing two runs and three hits over six innings and earned the victory. He did give up a homer to Luke Raley in the game.

The Pirates had an off-day Thursday in Seattle and Skenes was over at the University of Washington baseball facility as noted by the UW baseball account on X.

Notes

• Bryce Miller is expected to throw his first bullpen Saturday since going on the injured list for a second time last month. Miller is likely to throw about 15 pitches, all fastballs, for this first outing. Miller has been on the injured list since June 7 because of a bone spur in his right elbow. He had a platelet-rich plasma injection in his elbow June 10 and was shut down from throwing for two weeks after that.

• LHP Joe Jacques was optioned back to Triple-A Tacoma after one day with the M’s. Jacques was called up when Emerson Hancock was optioned Wednesday but became the player sent down in place of Logan Evans, who started Thursday night.