The Mariners Go As Cal Raleigh Goes – And Right Now, That’s Nowhere Good

NEW YORK – This was unusual. On Tuesday night, struggling Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh stepped in front of the cameras and recorders — before his manager spoke about Seattle’s fifth straight loss — in an impromptu and surprising admission of how poorly the slugger has performed this season. “It starts with me. I’m awful,” said Raleigh, who was still in his game cleats and full uniform after swinging through three high fastballs from Yankees closer David Bednar for the final out of the game. “Gotta find a way to be better and help the guys along. We gotta play better. We’re playing very, very bad baseball in every facet of the game. We gotta pick it up from the energy standpoint, to the execution, to the little things in the game that help you win, and we’re just not doing those things right now.” Raleigh went from on top of the world last year to one of the worst hitters in baseball this year. Similarly, the Mariners go as their catcher goes. Last season, Raleigh posted a 168 OPS+ and finished as the American League MVP runner-up. Across 159 games, a playing time that was unheard of for a catcher, he led the majors with 60 home runs and accumulated 7.2 WAR, which was second only to Yankees slugger and AL MVP winner Aaron Judge. This season, Raleigh owns a -0.1 WAR and 65 OPS+ in 87 games. He has hit only 12 home runs, and his strikeout rate has elevated dramatically from 26.7% last year to 32.2% this year. On Tuesday, Raleigh ventured out of the visitor’s clubhouse at Yankee Stadium to speak to the media before his much-maligned manager, Dan Wilson, could take the heat for his team continuing to tumble down the standings. There’s an unwritten order for postgame press conferences in MLB. Managers speak first, followed by players in the clubhouse. Raleigh broke away from that custom. The speculation that the Mariners may soon part ways with Wilson and relieve him of his duties has never been higher. As much as Wilson has held firm that “a good streak can change the outcome pretty quickly,” he’s worn down by the club’s 57-65 record after Thursday’s win over the Bronx Bombers. So Raleigh, rather bluntly, taking accountability and shouldering the blame for the Mariners’ season-long slump was crucial timing. “We just gotta bring that edge every day,” Raleigh said when asked what the first step should be. “It’s tough when things aren’t going your way. It’s hard. You feel like the world’s against you. You gotta have a good attitude. You have to bring that edge, because nothing’s given to you. We gotta go take it. And sometimes, you’re feeling bad for yourself, you get a little lackadaisical out there. You have less energy. You don’t have that edge that you should have every single day. “That starts with me. I need to do a better job of that each and every night, just being prepared and being ready to go every single night. Ultimately, we’ve just gotta play with a little more urgency.” On Thursday, before Seattle narrowly avoided being swept by New York, I asked Raleigh to elaborate on some of those mental adjustments he believes the team needs to make. But Raleigh declined, saying he doesn’t want to talk about it. “I said what I said. It is what it is,” Raleigh said. “The performance has to show it.” He went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts in the series finale in the Bronx. Even so, this was another honest response from Raleigh that anyone should respect, particularly his manager and teammates. Wilson supported Raleigh’s decision to take questions from the media before the skipper’s usual postgame press conference. “I love that Cal stepped up and had a lot to say,” Wilson told me on Thursday in the visitor’s dugout at Yankee Stadium. “I think our guys understand where we’re at, and understand the urgency of what the standings have us at. We got a big series coming up. There’s definitely some urgency. As a team, we’re all pretty aware of that. We’re ready to go.” There is some truth to Raleigh admitting he’s one of the biggest reasons that the Mariners offense has been floundering this season. The lineup has mimicked Raleigh’s poor decisions at the plate, including off-balance swings and a complete absence of clutch hitting. Seattle has scored the fewest runs (469) in baseball this year after scoring the ninth-most runs (766) in the majors last year. The Mariners own a .681 OPS, which ranked 28th in MLB entering Thursday. They were batting .215 with runners in scoring position before the win over New York, which ranked 29th. All of this is confounding for a talented team that, just last October, pushed the Blue Jays to an AL Championship Series Game 7 and fell just short of the franchise’s first-ever World Series appearance. The Mariners were expected to run it back this year. Instead, they’re one of the most disappointing teams in baseball. No one understands that feeling of whiplash better than Raleigh. “It’s not just him,” Mariners center fielder Julio Rodriguez told me. “I feel like all of us could do better, especially on the offensive side of things. He tried to take all the blame, but at the same time, we got nine guys. So, I can say the same thing. I’m shifting more of my focus to, what can we do now? Instead of the whole season where we’ve struggled, we’ve battled, we’ve done a lot of things. “But what can we do now? I’m focusing on that. It’s not for him to take all the blame.” What can the Mariners do now? Due to the parity in the AL, where only five teams are playing above .500, Seattle still has a chance to qualify for a wild-card spot. The M’s are 3.5 games behind the final spot, with six teams ahead of them, which can feel daunting. The Astros lead the AL West with a five-game advantage over Seattle, but Houston has its own problems, and they’re hardly running away with the division. If the Mariners can somehow get through a brutal schedule the rest of this month without dropping further down the standings — which in itself would be a remarkable feat, since they’re slated to play the Brewers, Cubs, Phillies, Blue Jays and Red Sox in August — then they can look forward to a soft schedule in September. In the final month of the regular season, Seattle will go up against the Athletics, Rangers, Angels, and Rockies. Despite the baseball calendar coming to an end, they believe they have it in them to make a run. Before the season started, FanGraphs’ projection system gave the Mariners a 79.6% chance of making the playoffs. That number had plummeted to 24% entering Thursday’s game, but it’s not zero. Until Seattle is mathematically eliminated, it will still have hope. “We have a ton of time,” Raleigh said. “We’ll make some adjustments. That’s just how it is. Baseball is a very hard sport. You have to dig deep sometimes and try to figure out what’s going to be best for you, your circumstances, and whatever the team needs.”