Report on Mariners offense raises a major question about Cal Raleigh's health

Remember when the Seattle Mariners could hope that an IL stint was all Cal Raleigh needed to get right? That ship has sailed. He's been back for two months, yet he's still tracking toward one of the great year-to-year declines in history. This alone is reason enough to wonder if he's OK.

And now, along comes a report from Adam Jude of The Seattle Times that is generally about the Mariners' offense, but which also contains a key line on Raleigh and his struggles before and after he landed on the IL with a strained right oblique in May.

"Raleigh’s dramatic about-face remains the biggest storyline around this team," writes Jude, "but it has been suggested that he will need a full offseason to completely heal from an oblique strain that derailed his start to the season."

Granted, it has merely been suggested that Raleigh's oblique is not completely healed. It's not clear who is doing the suggesting, and the only way to know for sure would be if the Mariners did a full array of tests and released the results. This hasn't happened, and it's probably not going to happen.

A lingering injury would explain why Cal Raleigh is still holding the Mariners back

What we can say is that Raleigh is hitting as if he isn't 100-percent. Instead of getting better since he came off the IL on June 16 after 34 days on the sidelines, he's actually been worse.

Here are the side-by-side numbers:

It's nice that Raleigh is getting on base at a higher clip, but his whole appeal as a hitter is meant to be more about power. To this end, the drops in his slugging percentage and expecting slugging percentage are alarming.

For what it's worth, Raleigh's average swing is up from 74.8 mph before the IL to 75.2 mph since coming off the IL. The latter mirrors his norm from last year, which of course ended with him blasting 60 home runs. That extra swing speed has made a difference, as he's gained 3.1 mph in average exit velocity and 8.3 percentage points in hard-hit rate.

It's the results that matter, though, and it isn't surprising that Raleigh has yet to turn that corner. Strikeouts have continued to be a theme of his season, as he hasn't had a K% below 30 percent in a month since back in April. He's also been under the ball a lot, to the point where his average batted ball distance has dropped by eight feel pre-IL to post-IL.

Mariners don't have much choice but to keep waiting on Cal Raleigh to figure it out

“Obliques are tricky,” Raleigh said when discussing his injury in May. “There'd be some times where you don't feel it at all, and there are some times when you really feel it. And yeah, there was some discomfort… I tried to get through it, and tried to gut it out.”

He was right about obliques just in general, and those words hit a little different now. Even if he's not playing in pain as too many Mariners have this year, it's fair game to wonder if he's going day-to-day with a weakened core.

The only other explanation for Raleigh's struggles is one that hitting coach Kevin Seitzer touched on, telling Jude that the 29-year-old backstop "doesn’t feel right with his swing." At this point, such an explanation doesn't invite patience. Even if the switch-hitting Raleigh has two swings to maintain, you'd think that two months would be long enough for him and Seitzer to crack the code.

Either way, the Mariners have to keep waiting it out. Harry Ford and Mitch Garver are gone from the organization, and Luke Stevenson is still a year away from being ready for the majors. Raleigh and Jhonny Pereda are what the Mariners have for catching depth, and nobody wants Pereda starting even if he is a low-key fan favorite.

So, it's Raleigh or bust. And with the Mariners still seven games under .500, it's clear which way those winds are blowing.

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