Raleigh blasted his 48th and 49th home runs, surpassing Perez’s catcher home run record.

Cal Raleigh’s landmark season hit a significant peak today during the Mariners’ 11-4 victory over the Athletics, when the catcher launched his 48th home run, matching Salvador Perez’s 2021 record for the most home runs by a catcher who played at least 75% of games at that position. Then, to top it off, he raised that total to 49 just an inning and a half later.

Perhaps coincidentally, these two home runs are among the most powerful of his career.

In the first inning, Raleigh capitalized on a 91.7 mph fastball right down the middle from Athletics left-hander Jacob Lopez, sending it 448 feet — his longest homer this season from the right side and the farthest of his career — into the second level of the T-Mobile Park stands, giving the struggling Seattle offense a much-needed lead.

Then in the second inning, he targeted Lopez’s first pitch changeup and hammered it to left field, a 412-foot shot that struck the away scoreboard. Both homers were two-run shots, providing crucial support for his teammate Logan Gilbert on the mound. Gilbert was also key to the Mariners’ win, allowing just one run on three hits over six innings while striking out a career-high 13 batters.

Combined with the Houston Astros’ earlier loss to the Baltimore Orioles, the Seattle Mariners have now closed the gap to within two games of first place in the AL West.

“I think the hardest part is staying focused on the main goal, which is winning baseball games and helping this team get where we need to be,” Raleigh said. “Obviously, doing those things is great and amazing, but at the same time, it’s more about paying attention to the guys in the room, focusing on the pitchers, focusing on the team goals rather than myself.”

After Raleigh’s second “moonshot,” accompanied by the loudest “MVP” chants of the season, he came out to acknowledge the home crowd with a tip of his cap.

“I didn’t expect that to happen,” Raleigh said. “They kept pushing me out there and I thought, ‘If I go out, I don’t want to look silly,’ but seeing everyone stand up was really cool. That was a special moment.”

Today’s home runs were Raleigh’s 39th and 40th as a starting catcher, with an additional nine homers as a designated hitter. Perez, the Royals icon, hit 33 homers as a catcher and 15 more as a DH during his historic season.

The single-season home run record for a primary catcher is 42, set by Javy Lopez of the Braves in 2003. Only three other catchers have reached 40 homers in a season playing behind the plate: Todd Hundley (1996 Mets), Roy Campanella (1953 Dodgers), and Mike Piazza (1997 Dodgers and 1999 Mets).

Another major milestone Raleigh aims to surpass is the single-season home run record for switch hitters, set by Mickey Mantle in 1961 with 54 homers. However, Raleigh surpassed Mantle today in another way by recording his ninth multi-homer game as a switch hitter, with the all-time record standing at 11, achieved by three players. He also broke Ken Griffey Jr.’s Mariners record for most multi-homer games in a single season (1997).

“He’s setting a new standard that no one can match,” said Mariners manager Dan Wilson, Raleigh’s longtime mentor since being drafted in 2018. “That’s the newsworthy part — his performance has reached a level where you can’t compare him to anyone else.”

Raleigh is also closing in on another significant Mariners record: the most home runs in a single season, set by Griffey with 56 in 1997 and 1998. Although Griffey led the AL in homers those seasons, he finished behind Mark McGwire (58 in 1997) and both McGwire (70) and Sammy Sosa (66) in 1998, missing out on the MLB home run title.

Raleigh has the chance to become the first Mariners player to lead the majors in slugging, which would likely make him, alongside Griffey (1997) and Ichiro Suzuki (2001), one of only three Mariners to win the AL MVP.

Raleigh has firmly entered the MVP conversation, largely in a two-man race against Yankees star and two-time MVP Aaron Judge, although the Mariners will almost certainly need to make the playoffs for him to win.

“It’s about not focusing on myself,” Raleigh said, “not putting too much pressure on myself, not chasing anything, not trying to hit any specific milestones. So I think that’s the most important thing — just trying to block out distractions.”

For Raleigh, this season is effectively two and a half seasons combined; his 38 home runs before the All-Star break rank second all-time, just behind Barry Bonds’ 39 in 2001. But since winning the Home Run Derby at the midsummer classic in Atlanta and delivering an epic performance, he has struggled somewhat. Before today’s game, his batting average was .202 with a 0.709 OPS, down from .259 and a 1.011 OPS earlier in the year.

Recently, his performance against left-handed pitchers has been especially poor — mirroring the Mariners’ overall struggles — hitting just .143 with a 0.443 OPS against southpaws in the second half.

This made today’s turnaround — for Raleigh, Gilbert, and a Mariners team that has lost eight of its last 11 games — all the sweeter.