Mariners' Luke Raley wedged his way into Chase DeLauter's ridiculous history

Luke Raley has every right to feel like Chase DeLauter crashed his "Coming Back Out" party over the weekend in Seattle. But if nothing else, at least Raley joined the Cleveland Guardians' impressive rookie in crashing MLB record books.

For anyone who missed it, DeLauter made history by homering four times in the first three games of Cleveland's four-game visit to the Mariners. He homered twice on Thursday, and then again on Friday and Saturday.

Yet by also homering in each of the first three games of the series, Raley joined DeLauter on an exclusive list of hitters to begin a new season with at least one homer in three straight games. And here's the kicker: They're the first pair to ever do so against each other.

Luke Raley crashing Chase DeLauter's breakout was the best part of Mariners' opening series

Though DeLauter is (rightfully) the talk of baseball after he and the Guardians left Seattle with a 2-2 split, the Mariners have every reason to be overjoyed with what they saw from Raley.

Here, let's do a simple comparison for the 31-year-old right fielder:

• 2025: 4 HR in 73 G
• 2026: 3 HR in 4 G

This is more like the Luke Raley the Mariners saw in 2024, when he went off for a 128 OPS+ and 22 homers. It just goes to show what a difference good health can make, though there also seems to be input from Edgar Martinez at play as well.

Though DeLauter had the most bonkers swing of the series — even Andrés Muñoz might agree on that — Raley made the loudest contact of anyone. He's already averaging 94.9 mph on his batted balls, with four barrels after he hit just 13 all of last season.

If Raley can keep this up, having that kind of threat in the No. 6 spot in the batting order stands to be capital-H Huge for the Mariners. It means opposing pitchers won't be out of the woods even after they get past the five All-Stars at the top of the order.

In theory, this is why the Mariners offense always stood to be dangerous in 2026. Beyond being more versatile than it has been in recent years, it's just plain deeper. Even after you get past Raley, there's still a righty masher Dominic Canzone, a big-time breakout candidate in Cole Young and, eventually, an on-base machine in J.P. Crawford as well.

Even so, it's nice to see Raley helping to prove the idea in practice this early in the season.