Instead of writing about Cal Raleigh’s 2025 season, I’d like to show you a few pitches that caught my attention.
April 17, bottom of the tenth
The Mariners had stormed back in the ninth inning to tie the game and send it to extras (thanks to a Cal Raleigh home run), which meant that Cal would have to wear the catcher’s gear for an extra inning.
In the 1930s, a catcher—either Muddy Ruel or Bill Dickey, depending on who you ask—referred to the mask, chest pad, and shin guards as “the tools of ignorance.” The irony was clear: anyone smart enough to play the position would be smart enough not to play it if he understood the risks.
You can see that phenomenon on display in this video as Andrés Muñoz spikes a slider that comes up and gets Cal Raleigh in the throat. The trainer comes out, but when the ump eventually asks if he needs more time, Cal just nods “nah, I’m good.”
A few days later, he hit a home run off the facing of the second deck.
May 29, top of the eighth
Here we see Cal catching a Matt Brash pitch that appears to jam his hand. He shakes it off, but one pitch after that, CJ Abrams fouls a ball back to the knob of Cal’s ankle, where there’s no protection. Former catcher Dave Valle is on the call, and you can hear the “believe me, that one hurts” tone in his voice. Cal takes a minute and grimaces, then gets back to it.
The next night, he hit a home run in the first inning. And then another one in the eighth.
June 23, bottom of the sixth
Another foul ball, this one to the inner thigh. Carlos Correa will never stop being hateable. Cal has to stand up and walk this one off, bouncing and hobbling around the plate for a moment. Three innings later, he hit his 32nd home run of the season.
July 12, bottom of the first
Detroit’s first batter tips one straight back to Cal’s wrist. But don’t worry. It’s not like you need your wrists for hitting. The umpire gives him a minute, knowing Cal’s got an entire game left of this. Two days later, Cal became the first catcher to win the Home Run Derby.
August 9, top of the ninth
In some ways, this isn’t really an article about Cal Raleigh. It’s about Andrés Muñoz’s slider, and Matt Brash’s curveball, and Logan Gilbert’s splitter, and Carlos Vargas’s entire arsenal. Cal catches a lot of pitches where the hurlers will be the first ones to tell you they’re not entirely sure where they’re going. In this clip, we get another spiked Muñoz slider, this one knocking dirt into Cal’s eye.
The next day, Cal Raleigh hit a home run.
August 20, bottom of the fifth
Alec Bohm hits a foul directly back into Cal’s mask, bouncing off his face and skull. He takes less than two seconds before reaching his glove out for the next ball. When I was in college, sometimes I would stay home from class because I “felt icky.”
That weekend, Cal hit two home runs in a game. The first traveled 448 feet and tied Salvador Perez’s record for most home runs by a catcher in a season. The second one, also over 400 feet, broke it.
August 24, top of the seventh
Later on in the game where Cal broke Salvy’s record, he catches Carlos Vargas. One of his pitches comes in wide off the plate. After 114 games behind the dish, this pinwheel is taking its toll.
Cal catches the wayward pitch awkwardly, has to drop his glove, and shake out his hand. In the first inning of the next day’s game, he hit his 50th home run.
September 16, bottom of the second inning
Logan Gilbert overthrows a curveball that bounces off the spring of home plate’s rubber and catches Cal in the throat. In the replay, you can see the flesh ripple. But four minutes later—four minutes later—Cal Raleigh hit a home run. About half an hour after that, he tied Ken Griffey Jr. for the franchise record.
ALDS Game 1, top of the 11th inning
After catching 1,072 innings in the regular season, having caught at least 1,000 in each of the last three years (the only player to do that), Cal takes a foul ball straight back into his face in the extra innings of a playoff game. 24 hours later, he doubled and scored the winning run for the Mariners’ first home playoff win in a quarter century.
You know what Cal Raleigh did last year. 60 home runs, just the fourth guy not connected to PEDs to do that. The most home runs by a catcher, as a catcher, by a switch hitter, by a Mariner. The first player to hit at least 20 home runs from both sides of the plate. And he did it while taking shot after shot while squatting with 15 extra pounds of gear in the summer heat. He’s smart enough to lead the Mariners pitching staff but too ignorant to understand why that’s a terrible idea. For Mariners fans, it’s bliss.