Raleigh goes supernova with 1st 3-HR night of his career

SEATTLE -- Cal Raleigh hasn’t looked like this since the night he hit 60. Yet even during his historic 2025 season, he never had a game like this.

The Mariners’ big backstop went for a full-fledged hat trick on Monday night against the Phillies, crushing three home runs for the first time in his career -- and more so, putting tangible evidence to what’s been brewing for weeks.

The Big Dumper might be heating up, and at the most opportune time.

Raleigh went yard in the first inning against Zack Wheeler, in the fifth -- again off Wheeler -- then once more for good measure in the seventh off reliever Chase Shugart, opening the floodgates toward a 9-2 win, as Seattle gained ground in the American League playoff race.

His outburst marked just the second time in Mariners history that a catcher posted a three-homer game. The first? That came from none other than his manager, Dan Wilson, on April 11, 1996.

To get to October, the Mariners will need some semblance of a high-powered Raleigh, last year’s runner-up for AL MVP who’s looked anything but in 2026.

Raleigh had cleared the fence just 14 times before stepping into the batter’s box Monday night, and he hadn’t had a multihomer game all season. That’s correlated to the sport’s largest dropoff in slugging percentage (from .589 to .304, entering Monday).

In fact, the last time he went yard twice in the same game was last Sept. 24 -- when he crushed No. 59 and 60 against Colorado, and the Mariners clinched the AL West title.

The totality of that night will go down as one of the most memorable in franchise history, but it’s felt like eons ago in this season that’s been equally maddening as mediocre, at least by the club’s expectations.

The Mariners can erase the past four months of frustration, however, by pushing through to this October -- and they could care less if they’d be the beneficiaries of playing in one of the sport’s most historically weak divisions.

They’ve just got to get there, and nights like Monday -- against a Phillies team firmly in the playoff race which arrived in Seattle on a nine-game win streak -- showed the Mariners’ full might to do so.

Raleigh became just the 13th player in franchise history with a three-homer game. He also tied Jay Buhner and Edgar Martinez for the second-most multihomer games, with 22, behind only Ken Griffey Jr., who had 40.