Cal Raleigh opens up about struggles, mindset entering Mariners’ second half
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – As Cal Raleigh sat in the dugout of Tropicana Field, he leaned on the knob of the Rawlings torpedo bat – the make and model he used to put together a historic 2025 season that turned him into a star.
He looked around at the refurbished climate-controlled confines and thought about his struggles, past and present, and then said quietly, “I actually got sent down here in 2022 with the team on the way to Miami.”
Indeed, he was 25 at the time and the Mariners were carrying three catchers on an expanded roster. They wanted Raleigh to be the left-handed hitting portion of a platoon with Tom Murphy. He went 2-for-24 with one homer, four walks and nine strikeouts for a slash line of .083/.214/.208 (.422 OPS) and made the decision.
Frustrated with his failure and questioning everything about his place in the big leagues, he sought comfort and advice from his father, Todd.
The longtime college coach had a simple response: WIN
No, he wasn’t talking about victory in games, though that’s always the primary focus in their household for any athletic endeavor. It was an acronym for “what’s important now?”
The mantra was on a sign that hangs in the Raleigh household in Cullowhee, North Carolina
“That feels like so long ago,” Raleigh said.
That was 632 games, 159 homers ago. Long before he became “Big Dumper.”
With a different mindset from difficult conversations with his father and himself, Raleigh returned a week later when Murphy suffered a dislocated shoulder. Success didn’t come immediately. But he hit a homer against the Mets four games into his return, starting a stretch of 17 games where he hit nine homers and drove in 15 runs – taking command of the catching position for the season and the future. He finished with 27 homers, including the walk-off blast that sent the Mariners back to the postseason for the first time since 2001.
But that enveloping frustration he felt as a rookie had slowly started to creep back. He hadn’t felt it in a long time. But the dismal start to a season with elevated expectations brought it back, much to his displeasure.
“It’s not what I wanted it to be,” he said.
The All-Star break was looming and Raleigh wouldn’t be a part of the festivities in Philadelphia, unlike a year ago when he was the focal point in Atlanta. Already on the East Coast, he opted to head back to his family home where that WIN sign in his father’s office was waiting as a reminder.
Asked to talk about the first half of a season that has been disappointing for him and the Mariners, there were times it was difficult to tell whether he was talking about himself or the team. And that’s logical considering how much he means to the Mariners in almost every facet of the game.
The Mariners went into the All-Star break with a 48-49 record, slogging their way through large parts of the first three months with a dispirited, inconsistent brand of baseball.
“We had high expectations … to be one of the best teams in the league, if not the best by the end of the year,” Raleigh said. “And when you’re not living up to those expectations, it’s hard. You start to put more pressure on yourselves. We have not played good baseball. That is just the straight fact of what it hasn’t been – consistent, good baseball. That’s just the truth.”
After missing three weeks of daily work for the World Baseball Classic, Raleigh returned to spring training and tried to get back what was lost but couldn’t. He started off slow at the plate with obvious timing issues. He started to pick up for a 10-game stretch. But oblique discomfort, that had roots in the buildup from the WBC, sidelined him for a few games. He unsuccessfully tried to play through it for eight games before being forced to go on the injured list for the first time in his career. He missed almost five weeks and didn’t look quite right upon his return.
“If you can go back to spring training, the wonky, fractured nature of his preparation, having to rush and catch up,” said Jerry Dipoto, Mariners president of baseball operations. “He’s such a routines-oriented guy, and it just got him out of sync. You add in an oblique strain, which makes sense to me when you’re working double time trying to catch up for missed time, and it’s a really easy thread to pull together and say, ‘Ah, this is probably what happened.’ ”
Raleigh’s numbers are jarring: 65 games, 280 plate appearances, .169/.271/.310 slash line, seven doubles, nine homers, 29 RBI, 35 walks, 91 strikeouts.
While the Mariners didn’t expect him to put up the ridiculous numbers he did in the first half last season – .259/.376/.634 slash line, 16 doubles, 38 homers, 82 RBI – they were hoping for something in the middle of the two extremes.
“In the history of baseball, it’s hard to be better than Cal Raleigh was last year, and then when you wake up and it’s July and you’ve gone through an extended stint on the IL, you haven’t really found your traction,” Dipoto said. “I don’t think he’s stopped being Cal Raleigh.”
Raleigh’s heard the theories for his struggles. He isn’t looking for the why. He’s looking for why it won’t continue.
“That’s for everybody else to decide,” he said. “I’m not one to make excuses. I don’t regret going to play for Team USA. I think that was a great opportunity. I would still do it over again just because you don’t get that opportunity every day. At the end of the day, was it harder to get at-bats? Yes. Did it maybe throw my timing off a little? Maybe. But I’m not here to speculate and make excuses. It was my job to get back and get myself ready for the season and now it’s my job to get myself ready for the second half.”
Raleigh has always put the pitchers and the responsibilities of being the catcher before his own personal hitting success. That hasn’t changed, but he knows his production is a root factor in the Mariners’ inconsistency.
“My job is to try to help the team win,” he said. “Overall, I just need to do a better job of being more consistent at the plate while still trying to help the guys on the mound and in the clubhouse every day. A lot of it falls on me, so I just need to do a better job, obviously offensively, while still trying to get the best out of everybody.”
It’s hard to lead when you aren’t producing. But his voice still resonates. His first message is to stop looking at last season’s accomplishments as reasoning for success this season.
“Everybody thinks we could just roll it out and run it back the same way that we did last year, and everything will be fine,” he said. “You can’t just coast your way into it, and believe you’re just going to do it. It’s coming to a realization that you’re not the same, we’re not the same. We need to find our own identity. We need to find our own niche and how we’re going to be and how we’re going to do the rest of the year.”
In years past, the Mariners were stubbornly optimistic that if they put in their daily work and preparation, success would follow. And it was largely true.
Raleigh feels there needs to be more. The inconsistency and injuries didn’t crater their season. Thanks to rampant mediocrity in MLB, particularly the American League, entering Friday, they were 11/2 games back in the division and still held the third wild-card spot, despite their losing record.
“Everybody works hard and that’s a good thing, right?” he said. “Everybody’s worked hard to get here. Everybody’s had to go through (expletive) to make it to where they’re at. Hard work alone is not going to get you where you want to go. It’s going to take something deeper than that. It’s going to take focus. It’s going to take energy. It’s going to take committing to approaches, committing to what we want to do as a player and being a team that’s got an edge.”
Edge?
“We have to show we’re going to fight and we’re going to do all the little things. We’re going to come to the yard and beat your (expletive) every single day. That’s the mentality. It’s more than just being the nice guys and working hard. That’s not going to get you where you want to go. When the lights turn on, you have to bring that edge every single day. Bring the ‘rent’s due’ kind of mentality. That’s the adjustment we need to make.”
There was an intensity to his voice. After spending much of the first half talking about what was going wrong, he was talking about what was needed to get right – for him and the team.
“The game is testing us right now,” Raleigh said. “We’ve struggled, we’ve been up and down. How do you keep pushing through, keep finding a way to win games, keep fighting with two strikes, keep finding a way to get runners on and get them in. Just keep fighting and don’t lose the fight. Keep your edge because we’re not here to love on everybody and have a good time. We’re here to win games.”
What’s important now? Winning games. That has to come first.
“That’s what fun is at the end of the day,” Raleigh said. “It’s winning, beating your opponent, getting into the postseason, winning the World Series. Those are memories you want to make.