SEATTLE -- Cal Raleigh summarized the ebbs and flows of the Major League season nearly three weeks ago, when the Mariners were playing as well as any team in the sport.
It was just after a disappointing homestand that, at least for a moment, grounded them and exposed their offense when it’s not all clicking at once.
“It's going to happen throughout the season,” Raleigh said on May 17 in San Diego. “It's going to happen again. I know it will. But I think the big thing is trying to minimize it.”
Sure enough, after a 4-3 loss to the Orioles on Thursday afternoon at T-Mobile Park, the Mariners have hit another stall -- this one lengthier than any of their others in this season that’s pressed past the one-third mark.
“We've got to turn the page,” Raleigh said on Thursday, when he homered again to take sole possession of the MLB lead with 24. “We’ve got to create our own luck and can't wait around. I think that's the big thing I want to see in the next couple games is kind of creating our own luck, creating our own kind of chaos on the bases and and things like that -- and not just waiting for that home run or that one hit. So I think that's kind of how we’ve got to push the envelope, in my mind.”
Seattle has lost 10 of its past 15 games after being swept by a Baltimore club that has been arguably MLB’s most underachieving team, but one that showed why it still carries potential.
The Orioles immediately seized momentum -- and held it -- with back-to-back homers off Bryan Woo, just after Raleigh crushed a two-run homer in the fifth. Raleigh also punched an RBI single to the opposite field in the third -- with two outs and in a full count -- and had two flyouts to the warning track, his first being blown in by 14 feet, per Statcast, thus preventing another homer.
The Mariners’ catcher is on pace for the best offensive season by a backstop in history. But it’s been a mostly one-man show in Seattle while he achieves each new feat, at least for the past two-plus weeks.
Here’s a look at the Mariners’ numbers dating back to May 20, when their 5-10 stretch began.
Raleigh: .345/.424/.862 (1.286 OPS), 9 HR
Everyone else: .214/.277/.304 (.581 OPS), 9 HR
To be sure, the Mariners did have nine hits on Thursday compared to the Orioles’ six, marking just the third time they have lost in 23 games where they have out-hit their opponent. But their struggles to cash in, as was the case during their 3-7 start to the season, were again at the forefront.
“We're getting guys on, but you've got to take advantage of it, right?” Raleigh said. “I mean, it's kind of the name of the game. We've just got to find a way to get those runs across like we were early in the year. Sometimes, it's not always going to be from the swing. You've got to get a bunt. You've got to steal bases, kind of like what we're doing earlier -- creating some traffic that way. So it's not taking two, three singles to get the job done.
“And that's kind of what it feels like right now. So when things are going like that, you've just got to find a way to create runs, and maybe it's not the most conventional way. So we've just got to get back to that, I think.”
Woo wore the loss hard. The fateful moments were when Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson -- both All-Stars last season -- took him deep in consecutive at-bats in the sixth inning, after Jackson Holliday drew a leadoff walk on six pitches, nearly all of them borderline.
Woo has only once given up two homers in a start this season, but never in his career had he been taken deep back-to-back.
“It's tough, especially wearing this one,” Woo said. “I feel like that's two in a row that are on me. I just need to do a better job. But, yeah, flush them as quickly as you can and get to the game tomorrow.”
Hiccups are to be expected over a long season, even for a pitcher like Woo with a compelling All-Star case. But just three runs of support from his offense was arguably the bigger culprit, especially when Raleigh accounted for all of Seattle’s run production.