The Seattle Mariners are limping toward the finish line of the 2026 MLB season, and their latest defeat may have perfectly captured just how badly things have gone wrong. Seattle was completely dismantled by the Milwaukee Brewers in a stunning 22-0 loss, adding another brutal chapter to what has become a deeply disappointing campaign.
Coming into the season, expectations surrounding the Mariners were considerably higher. After finishing the 2025 campaign with an impressive 90-72 record, Seattle appeared to have finally found the consistency and offensive firepower needed to compete at a high level. Instead, the 2026 season has turned into a frustrating regression, with the team struggling to reproduce the form that made them one of the more intriguing teams in baseball a year ago.
Few players embody that regression more clearly than catcher Cal Raleigh.
Raleigh entered 2026 carrying enormous expectations after producing one of the most remarkable offensive seasons of his career in 2025. The Mariners catcher exploded for 60 home runs last season, establishing himself as one of the most dangerous power hitters in the American League. His production was so impressive that he was legitimately involved in the conversation for the AL MVP award, battling against New York Yankees superstar Aaron Judge.
Twelve months later, however, Raleigh looks almost unrecognizable at the plate.
His numbers have fallen off dramatically, and his struggles have become one of the defining stories of Seattle’s disappointing season. Earlier this week, Raleigh finally managed to add another home run against the Houston Astros, bringing his season total to just 13.
That number is particularly difficult to comprehend when compared with what he accomplished only one year ago.
A player who launched 60 home runs in 2025 has managed only 13 so far in 2026. The difference is enormous, and it helps explain why so much attention has been placed on Raleigh’s sudden offensive collapse.
The problem isn’t simply that Raleigh is no longer hitting home runs at last year’s ridiculous pace. His overall production has fallen off a cliff.
Raleigh is currently batting just .157, with 52 hits coming in 334 at-bats. For a player who was expected to be one of the central pieces of Seattle’s offense, those numbers are incredibly difficult to ignore.
And perhaps the most brutal comparison of all comes from baseball history.
Raleigh’s struggles have been placed alongside the numbers produced by Pete Gray, the former one-armed outfielder who played for the St. Louis Browns during the 1945 season.
Gray’s story remains one of the most remarkable in baseball history. Despite losing his right arm in an accident during his childhood, he managed to reach the major leagues and compete at the highest level. During his lone MLB season with the Browns in 1945, Gray recorded a .218 batting average.
That means Raleigh’s current .157 average sits significantly below the mark produced by Gray more than eight decades ago.
The comparison obviously comes with plenty of historical and contextual differences. Gray played in a completely different era, under very different circumstances, and his achievement in reaching the major leagues with one arm was extraordinary. Still, from a statistical perspective, the comparison paints a brutally clear picture of just how poor Raleigh’s season at the plate has been.
For a player who was competing for MVP consideration only a year ago, seeing his batting average fall this far is remarkable.
The Mariners have certainly not been helped by Raleigh’s collapse.
Seattle’s offense was expected to be one of the team’s biggest strengths entering the season. Raleigh’s power was an important part of that equation, especially after his 60-homer explosion in 2025. When a middle-of-the-order hitter suddenly goes from producing historic power numbers to struggling simply to make consistent contact, the ripple effect can be enormous.
That appears to be exactly what has happened in Seattle.
The Mariners have spent much of the season searching for answers, and the frustration among their supporters has continued to grow. Instead of building on last year’s success, the team has taken a major step backward.
The 22-0 loss to Milwaukee only intensified those concerns.
Being shut out is bad enough. Being beaten by 22 runs is an entirely different level of embarrassment. A defeat of that magnitude immediately puts the spotlight on virtually every weakness a team has, from pitching and defense to offensive production and overall consistency.
For Seattle, Raleigh’s struggles have become impossible to overlook.
The catcher is supposed to be one of the club’s most dangerous offensive weapons, yet he has spent much of the season searching for the form that made him so dominant in 2025.
His recent home run against Houston provided at least a brief reminder of the player Mariners fans remember. But one home run does little to erase the larger problem.
Seattle needs Raleigh to become productive again.
The Mariners are entering the final stretch of the season with 35 games remaining and a 60-67 record. That record isn’t the worst mark in Major League Baseball, but it represents a dramatic decline from where the organization expected to be after its breakthrough 2025 campaign.
The contrast between the two seasons is particularly striking.
A 90-72 record in 2025 suggested that Seattle was moving in the right direction. The Mariners looked like a team capable of competing and potentially making a deeper postseason push. Players such as Raleigh appeared to be developing into genuine stars, and there was plenty of optimism surrounding the franchise.
Instead, 2026 has largely erased that optimism.
Seattle now faces a difficult question: was 2025 the beginning of something special, or was it simply an unusually successful season that the team has been unable to replicate?
Raleigh’s regression sits at the center of that discussion.
It is one thing for a player to experience a slight decline after a career year. Baseball is full of fluctuations, and even elite hitters go through stretches where the ball simply doesn’t fall their way.
But Raleigh’s drop-off is far more dramatic.
Going from 60 home runs to 13 while carrying a batting average below .160 represents a massive offensive collapse. It isn’t just a matter of fewer balls leaving the ballpark. His entire offensive profile has deteriorated.
That puts additional pressure on the rest of Seattle’s lineup.
When one of your biggest offensive threats is struggling this badly, other hitters are forced to compensate. Opposing pitchers can attack the lineup differently, knowing that a player who previously represented a major home-run threat is no longer producing at the same level.
The Mariners therefore need more than a hot streak from Raleigh.
They need him to rediscover some version of the offensive ability that made him so dangerous last year.
The timing makes the situation even more frustrating.
With only 35 games left, Seattle has limited time to turn its season around. Every game becomes increasingly important, particularly for a team attempting to salvage something from a campaign that has already fallen far short of expectations.
The Mariners don’t necessarily need Raleigh to hit another 60 home runs. That would be an unrealistic expectation.
What they need is consistency.
They need competitive at-bats, more frequent hard contact, improved production with runners on base and, perhaps most importantly, signs that the 2025 version of Raleigh is still somewhere inside the struggling hitter currently standing in the batter’s box.
Because if Raleigh cannot rediscover his swing, Seattle’s problems may extend well beyond the 2026 season.
The organization invested heavily in the idea that its recent success could become sustainable. A disastrous follow-up season raises questions about the team’s roster construction, offensive philosophy and ability to develop players into consistent contributors.
Raleigh’s situation is particularly important because he had already demonstrated that he was capable of producing at an elite level.
That makes the regression even harder to explain.
There is a major difference between wondering whether a young player can become a star and watching an established star suddenly lose his production. Raleigh already showed the Mariners exactly what he could do.
Now they have to figure out how to get him back there.
The comparison with Pete Gray may be harsh, but it illustrates the extraordinary nature of Raleigh’s current numbers. Gray’s .218 batting average from 1945 stands as a remarkable figure considering the circumstances under which he played. Raleigh, meanwhile, is struggling to reach even that level despite entering the season as one of baseball’s premier power threats.
For the Mariners, that cannot continue.
The final 35 games will provide one last opportunity for Seattle to change the narrative surrounding its season. A strong finish could at least give the organization something positive to build on heading into the offseason.
But if the losses continue and Raleigh’s struggles remain unresolved, the 2026 season will likely be remembered as one of the biggest disappointments in recent Mariners history.
Just one year removed from a 90-win campaign and an MVP-caliber season from their star catcher, Seattle now finds itself sitting at 60-67 and searching for answers.
And perhaps nobody represents that dramatic fall more clearly than Cal Raleigh.
The player who once sent 60 baseballs over the wall is now fighting simply to produce consistent hits.
For a Mariners team desperate to rediscover the identity it had in 2025, Raleigh’s bat may be the biggest piece of the puzzle.
The clock, however, is running out.
READ MORE
