EVERETT, Wash. -- This is all new for Cal Raleigh, too.
Seattle’s star catcher is dealing with a lengthy injury for the first time in his big league career. He’s on the injured list for the first time. He spent a week away from the club during the season for the first time. Now, he’s on the road back for the first time.
Sunday, he got his first experience with a rehab assignment, taking the field in High-A Everett’s game against Eugene.
Raleigh swung at the first pitch he saw Sunday, lifting a sky-high fly ball to right that nearly carried out of the yard. He struck out in his second at-bat, then chopped a single through the left side of the infield in the sixth inning to finish his day with a 1-for-3 line. All three of his at-bats came from the left side of the plate.
“It felt good,” Raleigh said. “I thought my timing would be a lot worse than it was today. But it was better. Ultimately, I was pretty happy with how the day went overall.”
It was his first game at Funko Field since 2018, when he began his professional career with 38 games for Everett -- then the Mariners’ short-season affiliate -- after being taken in the third round of that year’s Draft. Fittingly enough, the jersey the AquaSox gave him Sunday was No. 33 -- the one he wore in Everett that first summer, before he blossomed into one of the game's biggest stars.
Now, the talk turns to what’s next for Raleigh. The Minor Leagues are off Monday, and he’s set to move his rehab assignment 65 miles south to Triple-A Tacoma, with the Rainiers opening up a six-game series Tuesday morning at Cheney Stadium. He’s currently set to catch that first game -- almost certainly not the whole game, but he didn’t have a set innings target yet.
“DHing is a little easier, because you’re not doing both sides of it … so you can kind of play it by ear,” Raleigh said. “Whereas catching, you’ve got to set a plan and stay with it.”
Raleigh will stay with the Rainiers the rest of the week to build up. If all goes well and without hiccups, he'll return to the Mariners when they return to Seattle on June 16 against the Orioles to provide a boost to a club that goes into Monday with a 1 1/2 game lead in the AL West.
“We’re still going to monitor it and hopefully keep progressing up,” Raleigh said. “I thought today was a step in the right direction, which is good.”
The Mariners will also hope that Raleigh can get off to a hot restart. He began the season in a slump, sitting on a .186 average when he first missed time with his injury and a .161/.243/.317 slash line when he landed on the IL after enduring an 0-for-38 stretch in the middle.
In the 24 days since Raleigh went on the IL -- the Mariners have gone 13-9 in his absence -- Jhonny Pereda and Mitch Garver have combined to hit .257 with a .761 OPS, while leading the pitching staff to a collective 3.23 ERA and 1.09 WHIP. Those two have mostly alternated starts, but Pereda, who is on a six-game hitting streak that’s seen him raise his average from .185 to .292, got both of Seattle’s latter two games in Detroit this weekend.
With Raleigh nearing his return, the question begins to turn to whether Pereda’s done enough to keep a spot with the big league club when Raleigh comes back. The Mariners could decide to roster three catchers as Raleigh works back to a starter’s workload, but that would require a move elsewhere -- either from the right-field platoon situation or Patrick Wisdom, who’s currently the only infielder on the bench.