Cal Raleigh’s heroics can’t save Mariners as Orioles complete sweep

SEATTLE – As a summer blockbuster, Cal Raleigh is an unabashed smash. Five stars. No notes. Award season, here we come.

The Mariners catcher, his national profile rising by the day, his torpedo lumber making a city sway, is turning into one of the best one-man shows Seattle has ever seen.

And that’s the problem for the Mariners these days, isn’t it?

Buy a ticket to the show, put your feet up and enjoy the view from the dugout, fellas. Raleigh Time will surely save you, yeah?

It didn’t Thursday afternoon.

Not even Raleigh’s heroics were enough for the Mariners to avoid a sweep at the hands of the Baltimore Orioles, who held on for a 4-3 victory at T-Mobile Park in a third consecutive sleep-walking performance from the rest of the M’s lineup.

“We … can’t wait around,” Raleigh said in a quiet home clubhouse afterward. “That’s the big thing I want to see the next couple games, is creating our own luck, creating our own chaos on the bases and things like that. Not just waiting for that home run or that one hit. We’ve got to push the envelope, in my mind.”

Raleigh drove in all three runs for the Mariners (32-29), who finished the homestand with a 3-6 record and averaged just 3.4 runs in those nine games.

They are 16-17 at home this season, and they had an 82-16 strikeout-to-walk ratio on this homestand.

“Another close one today. Another tough one,” M’s manager Dan Wilson said.

In the fifth inning, Raleigh hit a two-run home run off Orioles starter Zach Eflin to give the Mariners a 3-1 lead, his 24th of the season to launch the catcher into the MLB home run lead, nudging him ahead of the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani.

Raleigh also drove in J.P. Crawford with a two-out single in the third inning to tie the score at 1. Raleigh leads the Mariners with 49 runs batted in this season, third most in the AL.

With the exception of Crawford, the Mariners’ lineup outside of Raleigh has been awfully inconsistent for the past two weeks. It’s just been plain awful for a while.

Here are the Mariners’ offense statistics since May 20:

Raleigh: .345 batting average, nine home runs, .424 on-base, .862 slugging (1.286 OPS).

Rest of the lineup: .214 average, nine home runs, .277 on-base, .304 slugging (.581 OPS).

In April, the lineup ranked among the best in baseball, with a 123 wRC+ (with 100 representing league average).

Since May 1, they’ve been a below-average offense (96 wRC+) with just 19 steals in 31 games and a 7.7% walk rate (down from an MLB-leading 11.5% through April 30).

“We gotta put some more pressure on the pitcher. We can’t let him get comfortable out there,” Raleigh said. “We gotta be able to make him think about the runners on base, steal bags, maybe lay one down (for a bunt), stuff like that. … That’s what creates opportunities for the bigger things, because then they might leave one over the middle (of the plate) thinking about the runner, then you can take advantage.”

Bryan Woo was sharp until the sixth inning, when he surrendered back-to-back homers to Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson that gave the Orioles the lead.

The Mariners’ 25-year-old right-hander came into Thursday with the second-lowest walk rate (3.3%) in MLB, but he matched his season high with two walks – both to lead off an inning.

Woo was especially tough on himself afterward.

His catcher came to his defense.

“He’s been pitching really good for us,” Raleigh said. “You’re allowed to be human.”

The Orioles scored their first run without a hit in the third inning. Woo walked Maverick Handley, who advanced to second on a Woo wild pitch, then to third on Rutschman’s fly out to deep center and scored on another Woo wild pitch.

In the sixth, Woo walked leadoff hitter Jackson Holliday after missing just high with a 3-2 fastball.

Rutschman, on an 0-2 pitch, then crushed a hanging slider that Woo left over the middle of the plate just over the wall in right field, and just fair near the foul line, a 337-foot blast to tie the score at 3-3.

Henderson, on a 1-1 pitched, then turned on a 96-mph heater on the inner edge for a 361-foot homer to give the Orioles a 4-3 lead.

Woo has allowed a combined four home runs over his last two games. He’d allowed a total of five homers in his first 10 starts.

Orioles reliever Andrew Kittredge, a 35-year-old Spokane native and former UW Husky, pitched a scoreless eighth inning, striking out Julio Rodriguez, getting Raleigh to fly out to the warning track in center field and then striking out Randy Arozarena chasing a slider.

The Orioles (25-36) have won six in a row.

The Mariners begin a six-game road trip through Anaheim and Phoenix on Friday night against the Angels.

“It’s 162 (games); you’re gonna go through it. It’s gonna happen,” Raleigh said. “You’re gonna have some good luck and some bad luck. And that’s how it goes. I know no one wants to hear that, but we just gotta flush it. Big road trip coming up here (against) a division rival. We gotta keep going, we gotta turn the page and we gotta create our own luck.”