Cal Raleigh is finally going on the IL, and it isn't even bad news for the Mariners

It was apparent as soon as Cal Raleigh grabbed his side in pain on Wednesday that he and the Seattle Mariners couldn't fake it anymore. So on Thursday, it's a welcome reprieve that the star catcher is going on the injured list for the first time in his career.

As Adam Jude of The Seattle Times was among those to report, Raleigh is going on the IL with a right oblique strain. This explains not only that one moment on Wednesday, but also the "right side soreness" that caused him to miss three games earlier this month.

In the backdrop of all this, of course, is a 2026 season that had become a nightmare for the 2025 AL MVP runner-up. Though he got off the hitless schneid with two knocks on Tuesday, Raleigh is still batting just .161 with seven home runs through 41 games.

Hence why what should be bad news feels a lot like good news. However long it takes Raleigh to recover, it's time he clearly needs to get right.

Cal Raleigh's IL stint provides Mariners with the kind of hope his bat wasn't producing

As per Daniel Kramer of MLB.com, there isn't an official timeline for Raleigh just yet. But from looking at injury data from RosterResource, the average oblique injury in 2025 resulted in 36 days of missed action. That's five weeks, give or take.

Obliques are kind of important for baseball players, and the catching, switch-hitting Raleigh puts his obliques through more than most. As such, that he and the Mariners apparently thought he could play through the pain when it first cropped up deserves some scrutiny.

Then again, it wouldn't be out of character if Raleigh insisted on playing through pain. His whole MLB narrative is an underdog story, and he surely knows how important he is. All good catchers are gems. Catchers who hit 60 home runs are dang treasure troves.

Alas, at no point in 2026 has Raleigh been what he, the Mariners and a veritable legion of Seattle and "Big Dumper" fans want him to be. The slump he was in was bad, and getting worse. It got to a point where opposing pitchers weren't even treating him like a slugger.

Attempts to explain exactly what was wrong with Raleigh tended to devolve into so many shrugs. He was clearly swinging and missing a lot and not hitting the ball hard, but with no obvious underlying cause. Maybe it was the oblique, but even that requires assuming it had been hurting since Opening Day.

Ultimately, signs of a coming turnaround were getting to be few and far between. And that is precisely why Raleigh going on the IL doesn't feel like a huge blow. The cold reality is that a team with a 21-23 record will be without a player who had posted -0.1 rWAR. It could even be addition by subtraction.

We'll see, of course. The hope for Raleigh and Mariners is in the long game, where there's still lots of time and potentially plenty of home runs and wins to come.

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