ARLINGTON -- Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh’s season-opening home run drought finally ended Monday in a memorable battle with Rangers ace Jacob deGrom, but many of Seattle’s sluggers are still withering.
The Mariners’ second through fifth hitters in the lineup Monday -- Raleigh, Julio Rodríguez, Josh Naylor and Randy Arozarena -- mashed a total of 128 homers last season, including Raleigh’s MLB-leading 60. But they had nary a dinger between them -- and a combined .137 average with a .383 OPS -- entering Monday’s 2-1 loss to the Rangers.
After Raleigh went deep on the 12th pitch of a first-inning at-bat against deGrom, the Mariners collected only one hit the rest of the night, an Arozarena single in the seventh off reliever Tyler Alexander. Raleigh, Rodríguez and Naylor are all batting below .150 now.
“We just weren't able to get the traffic and get those runners on and put the pressure on,” Seattle manager Dan Wilson said.
None of the Mariners hitters managed to accomplish anything Monday with runners in scoring position -- because they never had any. Although they were able to chase deGrom after five innings -- he departed after experiencing right knee discomfort -- the Mariners only put two runners on base against five Rangers relievers over the final four frames.
The Mariners have lost three in a row, including two to the Angels over the weekend.
“We’ve just got to take care of those little things ... kind of a slow start there in the first two games in [Anaheim], same thing here today,” Raleigh said. “We’ve just got to create some traffic. Even when you're not hitting the ball like you want to, you’ve got to be able to do the little things right: steal bags, get runners over, grind out at-bats, find some free bases here and there. We're just not doing that.”
After his breakthrough 2025 season, Raleigh needed 11 games -- and 12 pitches in an epic first-inning at-bat against deGrom -- to collect his first round-tripper of 2026. He smacked a 99.1 mph fastball a Statcast-projected 418 feet to right, a no-doubter that gave the Mariners a 1-0 lead.
Raleigh quickly fell behind in the count 0-2, but fouled off five balls before belting a line drive over the wall. It marked the third time in Raleigh’s career that he had homered in an at-bat of 10 or more pitches, a Mariners record. It also happened to be the most pitches deGrom had ever thrown in an at-bat ending in a hit.
Mariners right-hander Logan Gilbert was in a position to outduel deGrom until the bottom of the sixth, when he gave up a two-out single to Corey Seager and an RBI double to Jake Burger for the game’s pivotal run. Gilbert recorded his final out on a strikeout, his seventh of the outing, and pitched six full innings for the first time in three starts this season. In his previous two starts, Gilbert was pulled with one out in the sixth.
“I’m always trying to get at least six, I felt like I was in a good spot to do it,” Gilbert said. “And then sometimes in the sixth, things just happen. So we got the flyout to the wall. But then, of course, two outs, they get a single, and then I made a bad pitch, and then had 0-2 there [to Burger], made another. ... You take two pitches and [if] they were a little better, then it's a different story.
“So far, this whole season, my stuff has felt really good -- it's just like inches away.”