Mariners’ Cal Raleigh injury update presses pause on panic button—for now

After consecutive losses that have their record back down to 16-18, the Mariners are not having a good weekend. It stood to get substantially worse on Sunday if Cal Raleigh had to go on the injured list after he was a late scratch on Saturday.

Thankfully, this is not the case. For now, anyway.

Though the 2025 AL MVP runner-up is out of the lineup again on Sunday for the finale of a three-game set against the Royals at T-Mobile Park, that he's not going on the IL isn't the only good news. According to Ryan Divish of The Seattle Times, Raleigh has soreness in his right side that is already feeling better. He was even able to take swings on Sunday.

This will do for an excuse to take a deep breath followed by a nice, long exhale. Yet one caveat is that Raleigh is not out of the woods yet as far as a potential IL stint. Another is that, per the law of averages, he's more than a little overdue to end up on the IL.

The 29-year-old catcher has yet to go on the IL as a major leaguer. That's unsustainable for anyone, much less for a guy who plays every day at the most physically demanding position on the diamond.

Cal Raleigh's absence is already looming large over a Mariners team that remains inconsistent

Even though Raleigh has only missed one game, it's not hard to see his absence as the difference between a win and a loss.

It was the bullpen that blew Saturday's game in what ended up being a 3-2 loss in 10 innings. But when it comes down to it, it's hard to win games when the offense produces just seven hits and two runs. Even if he'd been able to pinch-hit in the place of Rob Refsnyder or Connor Joe in the ninth inning, he might have been able to give the Mariners the big hit they needed and didn't get.

Hopefully, Sunday will be the last game that Raleigh's side soreness costs him. But if he does need to go on the IL, the Mariners will have to go at least another week without him at precisely the moment he had been heating up. His last 10 games had yielded five home runs.

Granted, Raleigh was never going to hit 60 home runs again no matter what happened this year. But coming into 2026, you could at least hope for 40-plus homers in service of a Mariners team that figured to be deep enough to be less reliant on him.

There's obviously a lot of season left, but it's not the best sign that both of those hopes are already coming under strain.

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