'I'm Awful,' Cal Raleigh Takes Blame, Talks Struggles Amid Mariners' 5-Game Losing Streak

Following a 4-1 loss to the New York Yankees on Tuesday, catcher Cal Raleigh took responsibility for the Seattle Mariners' recent struggles.

Talking to reporters after the Mariners lost their fifth game in a row, Raleigh said, "It's not good. We're not playing well. That starts with me. I'm awful. I've got to find a way to be better, and to help bring the guys along. We've just got to play better. We're just playing very, very, very bad baseball in every facet of the game."

Raleigh added, "We've got to pick it up, from the energy standpoint, to the execution, to the little things in the game that help you win baseball games. We're just not doing those things right now."

With Tuesday's loss, the Mariners fell to a season-worst eight games below .500 at 56-64, placing them third in the American League West, 4.5 games behind the division-leading Houston Astros.

Seattle is also four games behind the Texas Rangers for the third and final wild-card spot in the AL.

After reaching the American League Championship Series and coming within one win of the first World Series appearance in franchise history, the M's were a popular pick to win the AL pennant in 2026.

The team has experienced a shocking fall from grace, though, and Raleigh is the most obvious individual representation of that fact.

In 2025, Raleigh had one of the best power-hitting seasons of all time and arguably the best offensive season by a catcher in MLB history.

He slashed .247/.359/.589 with 60 home runs and 125 RBI, earning him his first Silver Slugger Award and a second-place finish in the AL MVP voting behind New York Yankees superstar outfielder Aaron Judge.

Raleigh set a single-season record for home runs by a catcher, and he became only the fourth player in AL history to hit 60 or more homers in a season, joining Judge, Roger Maris and Babe Ruth.

This season has been a completely different story, though, as Raleigh is slashing a miserable .159/.264/.299 to go along with just 12 home runs and 43 RBI in 86 games.

Raleigh did miss about a month of action from May to June with an oblique injury, but even before the injury, he was hitting just .161 on the season.

The Mariners are far from out of it this season as it relates to the playoff race, but they need to turn things around quickly in order to close the gap, and getting far more out of their star catcher would help immensely in that regard.