SEATTLE – Major League Baseball announced today that catcher Cal Raleigh has been selected as the American League Co-Player of the Week for May 26-June 1, along with Tampa Bay Rays infielder Junior Caminero. It is the first weekly award of Raleigh’s career.
Raleigh, 28, hit .348 (8x23) with 6 runs, 6 home runs, 10 RBI and 1 stolen base, getting on base at a .444 clip and slugging 1.130 (1.575 OPS).
The switch-hitting catcher homered in 4 of 6 games during the week, including multi-homer games on May 27 vs. Washington and May 30 vs. Minnesota. Cal became the first catcher in MLB history to reach the 20-homer mark before June 1. It marks just the 29th time in MLB history and the 5th time a Mariners player has reached 20 homers by the end of May, joining Ken Griffey Jr. (3x, 1994, ’97, ’99) and Alex Rodriguez (1998).
Raleigh is the third Mariners player to win Player of the Week this season, after Jorge Polanco (April 21-27) and Dylan Moore (April 14-20), became the first Mariners to win back-to-back AL Player of the Week awards since Alex Rodriguez and Ken Griffey Jr. on June 27 and July 4, 1998.
Overall this season, Raleigh is batting .264 (56x212) with 39 runs, 10 doubles, 23 home runs, 45 RBI, 6 stolen bases and 37 walks, getting on base at a .379 clip and slugging .637 (1.016 OPS). He ranks among the MLB leaders in several offensive categories, including home runs (1st), slugging percentage (3rd), OPS (4th), RBI (7th), walks (T-8th), extra-base hits (T-4th, 33), total bases (3rd, 135), fWAR (2nd, 3.8), bWAR (4th, 3.4), wRC+ (3rd, 188) and OPS+ (3rd, 194).