KANSAS CITY -- Cal Raleigh etched his name into the record books alongside baseball legends Mickey Mantle and Ken Griffey Jr. with two swings Thursday night. And his chase isn’t over.
Big Dumper belted his 55th and 56th home runs of the season in the Mariners’ 12-5 win over the Royals at Kauffman Stadium, passing Mantle (55 in 1961) for the most by a switch-hitter in a single season before matching Griffey (56 in both 1997 and ‘98) for the most long balls in a season in Mariners franchise history.
Both homers traveled over 415 feet, the first hooking inside the right-field foul pole before the second crashed into the brick batter’s eye in center field. Raleigh now has 45 homers this year when playing catcher, which was already an MLB record.
“It doesn’t even seem real,” said Dominic Canzone, who went 5-for-5 with three home runs Tuesday. “He just does it every single day. He’s grinding behind the plate as well, so to just have that type of performance out of your catcher, it’s something that you really don’t see. He’s like a once-in-a-lifetime type player.”
The 28-year-old catcher needs just one more deep fly in the final 11 games to pass Griffey for the franchise title before attention will turn towards reaching the 60-homer mark, which has only been done nine times by six different players: Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire (twice), Sammy Sosa (three times), Aaron Judge, Rogers Maris and Babe Ruth.
But Tuesday’s record-setting night? For Raleigh, that’s hard enough to comprehend.
“It’s very cool,” Raleigh said. “Very humbled by it. Crazy kind of thing. I never thought it would happen. … It’s crazy. Not a lot of words to describe it. Just very grateful for it.”
Added Raleigh on MLB Network before speaking with reporters: “My name shouldn’t be in the same sentence with those guys, Mickey Mantle and Ken Griffey Jr. I don’t really have words for it. … I’m sure one day it will set in.”
Raleigh’s big night pushed the Mariners to their 10th straight win. Seattle (83-68) remained a half-game ahead of Houston (83-69) for the AL West lead, while the Mariners are now only two games behind the Tigers (85-66) for the second-best record in the AL, which earns a bye during the Wild Card round.
And the best part of Raleigh’s historic game? His third- and fourth-inning homers came from each side of the plate. The Mariners’ switch-hitter has gone yard from both sides of the box in the same game five times in his career and twice this season (April 16 at Cincinnati). Outside of Raleigh, there have only been five instances -- by five different players -- of a Mariner homering from both sides of the plate in the same game.
It was just another step for Raleigh in his quest to capture his first American League MVP Award. The catcher now has an MLB-best 10 multihomer games this year to go along with 56 homers and 118 RBIs, which both lead the AL. Raleigh needs six homers to tie Judge (62, 2022) for the most home runs in a single season in American League history.
“We’ve said this all before, but it just continues,” said manager Dan Wilson. “And it continues at a historic level. To do what he’s doing, and to do it behind the plate, as often as he’s back there, again, it’s just kind of unfathomable.
“I think the way he led the staff again tonight, what he has done for us behind the plate all year, to do it at that level and then do what he has done offensively, it’s unmatched. I think you can honestly say it’s unmatched.”
That wasn’t more evident than in the bottom of the second inning, when Raleigh was hit in the throat by a Logan Gilbert slider that bounced in the dirt before bouncing up and connecting with Raleigh below the mask. It was clear Raleigh was in pain, but he stayed in the game after speaking with Wilson and a trainer. Less than five minutes later, he led off the third with his first homer of the night.
“He’s not one to take a little time, and he said, ‘I need a second,’ but that’s all he took, was a second, to be honest,” Wilson said. “He’s tough. He’s tough as nails.
“I don’t know if it’s poetic license or whatever you want to call it, but to take a ball off the neck in the half-inning before and then come out and hit a homer, and then hit another homer later, that’s the kind of year, in some ways, Cal has had. He’s a grinder. He’s been unbelievable. And to get that record tonight, congratulations to Cal. It’s an unbelievable thing that he has done, and we got a chance to watch history tonight.”
Raleigh was sporting what looked to be the start of a bruise on his neck postgame, but his focus remained on winning the game and the all-around team performance on Tuesday. The final push for Seattle to clinch only its second postseason appearance since 2001 still remains, and that’s the number Raleigh is chasing most.
“ … He just continues to check off all these milestones and he does it with such a humble heart,” Wilson said. “The position itself to that a little bit because you get knocked down back there, but he has handled it all so incredibly well. And I don’t know how he’s been able to do it.”