Raleigh’s 10th-inning homer adds to rivalry with Blue Jays

TORONTO -- The Mariners needed a hero, badly.

After dropping three straight contests and sporting a 1-4 record on the road trip, Seattle needed someone to step up and clot the bleeding. Cal Raleigh delivered just that in the 10th inning of the Mariners’ 6-1 win over the Blue Jays on Wednesday afternoon at Rogers Centre.

Seattle's offense managed just one run through nine innings, risking to squander a brilliant performance from starter Logan Gilbert. But then, Raleigh put on his cape, delivering a two-run homer to the opposite field in the 10th to put the Mariners ahead by 3-1.

“In this ballpark, really against the Blue Jays, Cal Raleigh has been fantastic,” manager Scott Servais said. “I don't know what the career numbers look like, but there's a bunch of home runs in there.”

Raleigh has made a habit of these back-breaking hits against the Blue Jays. That 10th-inning blast was his ninth homer in 15 career regular-season games against Toronto, the most he has against any MLB team. And those numbers don't even count the homer and three RBIs he collected at Rogers Centre in the 2022 American League Wild Card Series.

Looking across the field at the Blue Jays' dugout brings “a little extra motivation,” Raleigh said. After a two-homer performance from the Seattle backstop in Toronto last season, Blue Jays manager John Schneider told reporters, “He’s not very tough to pitch to when you execute your pitches.” Raleigh heard those comments, he said after Wednesday’s contest, and he made Toronto pay again, smashing a Tim Mayza sinker located just off the plate.

“I know a lot of guys have beef with [Schneider] in the league,” Raleigh said. “His comments aren’t surprising. You know, I don’t have much to say. If you don’t have anything nice, don’t say it at all, I guess.”

Wednesday’s clutch blast came after Raleigh led Gilbert through a brilliant 7 2/3-inning start. After Toronto’s bats made Luis Castillo and George Kirby pay for mistakes over the plate in the first two games of the series, Gilbert found success living on the edge of the zone, expanding it only when he got ahead. The 26-year-old worked ahead with his fastball, touching 97.1 mph with the pitch, and then busted out the secondary stuff.

After punching out Cavan Biggio and Alejandro Kirk to start the fifth frame, Gilbert pushed his tall frame toward home with two strikes on Kevin Kiermaier. The right-hander swept a slider across the front half of the zone, dropping the pitch at Kiermaier’s knees for a swinging strike. The whiff was one of the nine Gilbert earned with his slider on Wednesday.

“Awesome outing from Logan Gilbert today,” Servais said. “It’s exactly what we needed. But you talk about executing pitches and not backing off, staying in controlling counts, all the things we preach about on the pitching side, he did it today.”

The lone mistake from Gilbert came in the seventh inning, when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. pounced on a breaking pitch in the zone and sent it to the outfield seats to tie the contest.

For a Seattle offense that entered Wednesday’s contest sputtering, the game-tying homer could’ve been a killer. Instead, it set up for some needed heroics from a Blue Jays killer. Against a team he’s made a career of crushing, Raleigh stepped up and sent Seattle home with a win.

“I'm really proud of the guys today,” Servais said. “Showed up with great energy today. Everybody was good to go. And we found a way to get it done. Day off tomorrow and get back at it at home.”