Mariners’ Cal Raleigh blasts 2 homers, in reach of Barry Bonds’ first-half record

DETROIT — The best pitcher in baseball was on the mound pitching at home for the team with the best record in the American League and taking on an emotionally drained group of Mariners that rolled into town at close to 3 a.m. local time after getting excruciatingly swept out of Yankee Stadium. Of course this is the game these Mariners end up winning. But two home runs from Cal Raleigh will ...

Tim Booth, The Seattle Times | July 11, 2025

Cal Raleigh of the Seattle Mariners celebrates his eighth-inning home run with teammates while playing the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park on Friday, July 11, 2025, in Detroit.

Gregory Shamus/Getty Images North America/TNS


DETROIT — The best pitcher in baseball was on the mound pitching at home for the team with the best record in the American League and taking on an emotionally drained group of Mariners that rolled into town at close to 3 a.m. local time after getting excruciatingly swept out of Yankee Stadium.

Of course this is the game these Mariners end up winning. But two home runs from Cal Raleigh will always help the cause.

Tired from the late night of travel and facing the machine that has been Tarik Skubal for most of this season, the Mariners pulled off one of their more unlikely wins of the first half of this season beating the Tigers, 12-3, on Friday night before 41,681 at Comerica Park.

It took a little bit of everything to make it happen, but it ultimately came down to three swings. Julio Rodríguez hit a two-run homer off Skubal with two outs in the fifth inning to give the M’s a 4-1 lead.

And then Raleigh’s magical first-half continued by homering in consecutive at-bats in the eighth and ninth innings. His 37th came in the eighth inning and added the name Tyler Holton to the list of pitchers that have watched a Raleigh swing leave the yard.

But No. 38 was historic. It was a grand slam in the ninth off Brant Hurter, the pitcher who gave up Raleigh’s first homer on this march toward history back on March 31. It gave Raleigh sole possession of second all time for the most homers before the All-Star break, one behind Barry Bonds, who hit 39 in 2001.

Raleigh moved past Chris Davis (2013), Mark McGwire (1998) and Reggie Jackson (1969), all of whom hit 37 before the break. Both homers came from the right side, giving him 16 from that side of the plate.

He has six hits in the last 10 games — all six have been home runs.

Every Raleigh homer at this point is historic, moving up one list or another. But maybe the bigger swing came from Rodríguez because it’s the kind of slugging the M’s desperate need to see more of from their center fielder the second half of the season.

It came on the day Rodríguez decided that resting instead of playing in the All-Star Game was the more prudent choice. His 12th homer of the season, and just his second in the past 41 games, was a 416-foot shot off Skubal on a 1-2 change-up that fluttered into the middle of the strike zone in the fifth inning. Rodríguez’s previous two homers came on June 23 in Minnesota and May 27 at home vs. Washington.

They were long stretches without that kind of loud contact from the player the M’s need to get hot at the plate.

Before Rodríguez and Raleigh provided the pop, it was Donovan Solano proving to be an unlikely spark. It helped that center fielder Parker Meadows badly misplayed Solano’s line drive in the second inning, but it went in the scorebook as an RBI triple and an early lead off Skubal.

Solano then started the fourth inning with a walk. Ben Williamson’s slow groundout advanced Solano to second and he scored when J.P. Crawford lined a two-out single to left field.

That kept the inning going and four pitches later, Rodríguez was rounding the bases. The bottom four of the M’s order ended up with six of the 11 hits, scored six of the 12 runs and created the opportunity for Raleigh to come back to the plate in the ninth.

Skubal’s final line was five innings, four hits, four runs and his first loss since April 2 against … the Mariners.

Not to be forgotten was a solid start from Luis Castillo pitching into the sixth inning and matching Skubal. And Eduard Bazardo and Gabe Speier combined for three scoreless innings of relief while the game was still in question.

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