CHICAGO — Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh homered in the ninth inning of a 10-7 loss to the Chicago Cubs on Saturday afternoon, his 30th long ball of the season. Friday, Raleigh hit his 28th and 29th homers of the season, passing Cincinnati Reds Hall of Famer Johnny Bench with the most home runs by a catcher before the All-Star break. Raleigh now also has the mark for most home runs before the break by a switch-hitter.
He then hit his 31st homer on Sunday as the Mariner won the series against the Cubs, two games to one.
“Thirty home runs is impressive,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “And we’re not even at the halfway point. He’s good.”
Catcher, switch hitter or just any player, what Raleigh is doing is rare. Only eight other players had hit 30 or more home runs in their first 75 games of the season. The last to do it were Barry Bonds and Luis Gonzalez in 2001.
Raleigh has gone from a very good catcher to clearly the best in the game this season. Though Aaron Judge remains the favorite to win the AL MVP, Raleigh’s performance has been hard to ignore. According to FanGraphs, he’s second to Judge in WAR (4.9) and wRC+ (187). At still just June 21, Raleigh is on pace to put together one of the greatest seasons for a catcher ever seen.
Saturday’s blast put Raleigh three ahead of New York Yankees star Aaron Judge for the major-league lead in homers, and five ahead of Shohei Ohtani. Raleigh’s performance isn’t a one-off, either. He now has 30-plus homers in three consecutive seasons and hit 27 in 2022, his first full season.
The man known as “Big Dumper” will probably be busy during the All-Star break, too. In the voting results released June 16, Raleigh led all American League catchers with more than a million votes. Alejandro Kirk of the Toronto Blue Jays was in second place with just over 370,000.
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