The Mariners' catcher Cal Raleigh made a game-changing hit against the Rays.

Cal Raleigh, the catcher for the Seattle Mariners, has been experiencing the worst slump of his phenomenal season. However, today he may have emerged from it in a significant way.

This heavy-hitting catcher blasted his 43rd home run of the season, and it was the most dramatic one yet. In the eighth inning, with two outs, he took a cut on a slider from the opposing reliever Griffin Jax, hitting a go-ahead three-run homer that helped the Seattle Mariners defeat the Tampa Bay Rays 3-2.

Since the trade deadline, the Mariners have a record of 7 wins and 1 loss, but after the Astros defeated the Yankees earlier in the day in extra innings, the Mariners are still 1.5 games behind in the AL West.

"You really feel like you stole that win," Raleigh said.

Appropriately, as the weekend celebration of Ichiro Suzuki's Hall of Fame induction and jersey retirement began, the Seattle crowd erupted with "MVP" chants, with 39,780 fans in attendance.

Raleigh not only extended his lead in home runs for the season but also reached another milestone in this historic season, as Friday's home run was his 35th hit as a catcher. This ties the American League record for catchers set by Hall of Famer Ivan Rodríguez in 1999, when Rodríguez won the AL MVP while playing for the Rangers.

“I’m a person, and I definitely heard their voices,” Raleigh said. “But, yeah, I’m just trying to focus on the task at hand. … That was a great go-ahead homer at a crucial moment. These games, when you look back at the end of the year, you’ll think, ‘That was an important win.’”

Before Raleigh's breakout, the Mariners were struggling against the Rays and starter Drew Rasmussen. They had only four hits total, and it wasn't until the eighth inning that J.P. Crawford and Cole Young hit consecutive one-out singles, bringing the lineup back to Raleigh, with Randy Arozarena having already recorded the second out.

Raleigh then took a slider and a changeup without swinging, bringing the count to a favorable 2 balls and no strikes. Previously, he had faced Jax seven times in his career, when the right-hander was still with the Twins before the trade deadline (the Mariners had also shown interest in Jax). In the 15 pitches Raleigh had seen from Jax this season, none had been fastballs.

However... "I was thinking it was a fastball, just trying to adjust my eyes slightly because you want to be ready for his off-speed stuff," Raleigh said. "So, I was still targeting the fastball and adjusting from there. Like I said, he’s a tough pitcher, and his velocity can reach the high nineties, which makes things more challenging."

Jax added, "I’ve had a few at-bats against him this year that went the way I wanted, so he’s seen me three or four times now. When I got to a 2-0 count, that’s what good hitters do. I just put myself in a hole and couldn’t get out of it."

Raleigh has struggled since the epic All-Star Week in Atlanta, where he won the Home Run Derby and arguably was the star of the entire event. Before this critical at-bat today, he had only 15 hits in 80 at-bats, with a batting line of .188/.244/.338 (an OPS of .582), compared to .259/.377/.634 (an OPS of 1.011) in the first half of the season.

He even showed rare frustration earlier in the game, walking back to the dugout with a pout after his third at-bat.

However, the underlying numbers indicate that since the All-Star break, Raleigh has been hitting well, with a hard-hit rate (balls hit at 95 mph or higher) of 59.6%, up from 41.1% before. He hit 38 home runs before the All-Star break, trailing only Barry Bonds in 2001, and more than any other player in history.

“Tonight is a perfect example,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson said. “He always finds the sweet spot on the ball, but it’s either too low to hit a fly ball or something else. … He was able to stay focused and hit that home run; that was a critical at-bat. That was a key home run.”

Despite their success since the trade deadline, the Mariners were missing their new first baseman Josh Naylor on Friday (day-to-day with left shoulder soreness) and are still looking for more contributions from Eugenio Suárez (who has only 3 hits in 31 at-bats since returning to the Mariners).

However, they secured victories in the latter half of the game for the second consecutive day, highlighting the momentum they are building for the final stretch.