Raleigh's 2 homers move Mariners toward October

CLEVELAND -- Cal Raleigh was there last year when his team scratched and clawed its way into the American League playoff picture only to have the postseason door slammed in their faces on the last day of the season.

This year, Raleigh’s doing everything he can to make sure that door stays wide open into October.

A day after they closed out a dominant sweep of Detroit, Raleigh and the Mariners continued to feast on the American League Central on Friday with a 6-1 win over the first-place Guardians that was highlighted by two well-timed home runs from Raleigh. With the win, the Mariners remained tied with Tampa Bay for the top AL Wild Card spot.

“Any time you can be in a situation like we were last year is going to help,” Raleigh said. “Coming up last year was huge, so this year we know we need to keep our head down and not give any games away, because we know each game is really important.”

Friday’s victory was another strong performance in what has become a breakout season for Raleigh, who now has 21 home runs on the year. That leads American League catchers and puts him in a tie with the Cubs’ Willson Contreras for the Major League lead among backstops.

“He’s put together some kind of season,” manager Scott Servais said. “If you look at how the season started for him and where he’s at right now, I don’t think anyone could have predicted this … really really proud of him.”

While both of Raleigh’s home runs went to right field, they left Progressive Field in completely different ways. In the second inning, Raleigh hit the prototypical blink-and-you’ll-miss-it home run when he smoked a Cody Morris fastball into the right-field seats to extend Seattle’s lead to 2-0.

The homer had an exit velocity of 113.9 mph (.1 mph below his career high), a launch angle of 21 degrees (the second-lowest launch angle for any of his home runs) and a hang time of only 3.6 seconds.

Raleigh said the experience of going against Morris was akin to youth baseball, as Morris made his debut on short-notice after scheduled starter Zach Plesac was a late scratch due to a right hand fracture.

“There’s so much info out there even in the Minor Leagues, so we had an idea [of how to approach him],” Raleigh said. “It’s kind of like travel ball, where you’re just showing up and saying, ‘All right, I’m going with my approach today.’”

Raleigh’s second home run can be filed under the traditional category, as he launched a hanging curveball from Bryan Shaw 424 feet into right-center field to put the game away. It gave Raleigh his second multi-homer game of the year, and he became the third catcher in team history with 20-plus home runs in a season, joining Mike Zunino and Omar Narváez.

“He’s some kind of strong, and [we knew] he had power from both sides; you just don’t know when it’s going to click at the Major League level,” Servais said. “The timing has been perfect. … He’s been fun to watch.”

Raleigh also flashed his skillset behind the dish, as he worked with starter Luis Castillo for six scoreless innings in another strong start for the Trade Deadline acquisition. Cleveland’s lone run came in the seventh on a throwing error by Julio Rodríguez.

“[Calling a game] is something you take pride in every day,” said Raleigh. “You’re not going to get two home runs or even a hit every day, that’s just how it is, but you can always go back there and control the other hitters.”

While Castillo only tallied four strikeouts (six fewer than he rung up against Cleveland in his last start), he attacked the strike zone and kept hitters off balance, recording a 55% whiff rate with his slider.

“I consider him one of the best,” Castillo said of Raleigh. “I have a lot of confidence in him, and he’s one of the reasons we’re doing so great.”

A former Major League catcher, Servais crashed Raleigh’s postgame interview with AT&T Sportsnet by playfully dumping water down his catcher’s mask before hugging him.

Neither of them wants that to be their last postgame celebratory embrace.

“He gets it,” Raleigh said.