SEATTLE — A day after breaking the single-season record for home runs by a catcher with his MLB-leading 48th and 49th on Sunday, Cal Raleigh continued his milestone season Monday, becoming the first player to reach 50 homers this season.
The Seattle Mariners catcher hit a first-inning solo shot on a 3-2 fastball from San Diego Padres lefty starter J.P. Sears to give his club an early 1-0 lead at T-Mobile Park. Seattle ultimately won 9-6 to clinch the first Vedder Cup.
Raleigh joined Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle as the only switch-hitters to hit 50 home runs in a season and has a chance to surpass Mantle’s switch-hitter record of 54, which was set in 1961.
Raleigh, who is on pace for 61 home runs this season, is also within range of the Mariners’ single-season record of 56, which was accomplished twice by Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr. (1997, 1998).
He is the 33rd player in MLB history to join the 50-homer club and the second Mariners player to reach the milestone since Griffey Jr.
The 28-year-old hit his MLB-leading 48th and 49th home runs of the season in his first two at-bats in an 11-4 win over the Athletics on Sunday. The second homer broke the record set by the Kansas City Royals’ Salvador Perez on Sept. 29, 2021, for most by a primary catcher.
Raleigh’s previous career high for home runs was 34, which he hit last season in 153 games. Monday was his 129th game of the season.
Raleigh turned fell into an 0-2 hole but the count full before crushing No. 50.
“It doesn’t seem real,” Raleigh said. “I mean, 50 home runs. It’s kind of a crazy number to think of. It’s a big number just in general. I remember thinking back when I thought I was a cool player when I hit five when I was in high school. You hit five, you had all this power in the world.”
The victory was the Mariners’ fourth in four meetings between the teams this season, rendering the remaining two games here this week utterly meaningless.
The Vedder Cup trophy — an actual 1963 Fender guitar designed by Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder, a one-time resident of both San Diego and Seattle — will remain at T-Mobile Park for at least a year.
T-Mobile Park does not historically give up many home runs, ranking in the bottom half of the league most seasons. But the Mariners are hitting quite a few this season — with the second most in the majors entering the game — and an average of nearly 2½ homers per game are being hit in their home ballpark this season.
And the conditions were right, as Seattle is experiencing what is considered a heat wave in the Northwest. It was 84 degrees when the game began Monday evening, and the roof was open.
In all, the teams combined for six homers, the first five in a span of the game’s first 18 batters.
At that point, the Padres led 4-3.
Raleigh’s 50th home run of the season, which extended the MLB record he set a day earlier for home runs in a season by a player who is primarily a catcher, gave the Mariners a 1-0 lead.
The Padres hit a home run every other batter in the second inning — a solo homer by Gavin Sheets with one out, a solo homer by Jake Cronenworth with two outs and, after a Freddy Fermin walk, a two-run homer by Fernando Tatis Jr.
It was the first time Tatis had homered in more than a month and ended a career-long drought of 128 plate appearances.Tatis dropped the bat at his side as he watched the ball sail a projected 416 feet and over the center field wall. As he neared third base, he did a tiny stutter step. And as he rounded the bag he looked into the Padres dugout and smiled.
“I thought we swung the bats well tonight against tough pitching,” Sheets said. “That’s all you can do.”
Maybe it would have been good enough had the Padres played defense and pitched as they usually do.
A one-out error by Manny Machado on a strange-hop grounder in the bottom of the second was followed by Jorge Polanco lining a ball over the wall in left field to get the Mariners to within a run.
By the time the Padres scored again — on Ramón Laureano’s solo homer in the seventh inning — the Mariners had tied the game against Padres starter JP Sears in the fourth and scored five times in the sixth against David Morgan and Wandy Peralta.
Six days earlier, Sears had begun a stretch of five quality starts in six games by Padres pitchers. And Morgan, a rookie had not given up more than one run in any of his previous 31 career appearances.
Sheets missed getting the Padres within a run by a few feet when he launched a ball down the right field line in the eighth inning, just to the foul side of the pole.
“It was fair until the last second,” said Sheets, who had made it almost to first base when the ball was called foul. “It was tough. It sucked. It was a really good feeling and then a really, really bad feeling pretty quick. It was definitely foul. I didn’t think it was gonna go foul, but then at the last second it did.”
Sheets walked on the next pitch to load the bases before Laureano struck out looking against Matt Brash to end the inning.
The Padres got two on with one out in the ninth against Andres Muñoz, another former Padres pitcher, before Luis Arraez grounded out to bring in one run and Machado struck out to end the game.
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