Cal Raleigh’s Player of the Week Award Makes the Mariners’ Collapse Look Even Worse

Cal Raleigh was named American League Player of the Week. That should feel like reassurance that he’s turning his season around. Instead, it feels like somebody turned on the lights so we could get a better look at the wreckage.

Raleigh hit .389 with five home runs, six RBI and five walks across six games. He reached base at a .522 clip, slugged 1.278 and posted a ridiculous 1.800 OPS. He led the majors in slugging, OPS and wRC+ while tying for the lead in homers. This wasn’t a courtesy award for his bat waking up. Raleigh tore the cover off the ball.

So what’s the downside? The Mariners went 2-4.

Solid week at the office for 2️⃣9️⃣ #TridentsUp pic.twitter.com/f22xorlXL7
— Seattle Mariners (@Mariners) August 31, 2026

Cal Raleigh Finally Looked Like Himself, but the Mariners Still Collapsed

Raleigh opened the week by hitting three home runs in a 9-2 win over the Phillies. He went deep in his first plate appearance the next night, giving him four consecutive home runs across four official at-bats and helping Seattle win again.

For roughly 48 hours, it looked like the Mariners were turning things around. Then everything fell apart.

Philadelphia shut them out 6-0 in the series finale. Toronto followed with an 8-1 beating, a 4-3 loss and another 7-0 shutout. Seattle was outscored 19-4 during the sweep and finished Raleigh’s award-winning week on a four-game losing streak.

Raleigh did his job. No one else could get anything going. And that’s an indictment of the entire club. One hitter cannot cover for a lineup that keeps disappearing. Seattle took turns failing in every area during the Toronto series, which is how a team wastes the best individual performance in the American League.

Then they doubled down on that point Monday night in Boston.

On the same day Raleigh received the award, he launched his 20th home run of the season and gave the Mariners an 8-5 lead. Randy Arozarena went 4-for-5 with a homer and four RBI. Yet Seattle still lost 9-8 in 10 innings and extended its losing streak to five games.

AL Player of the Week things 💥 #TridentsUp pic.twitter.com/Mc7z78Fit5
— Seattle Mariners (@Mariners) September 1, 2026

George Kirby allowed five runs. Eduard Bazardo had a meltdown in the eighth. The Mariners then stranded Dominic Canzone at third after his leadoff triple in the ninth. Julio Rodríguez’s split-second gamble on Roman Anthony’s 106.5 mph liner turned what likely would have been a single into a triple. Anthony scored on Ceddanne Rafaela’s sacrifice fly, and Story finished the collapse with a bases-loaded walk-off single in the 10th.

That game was the Mariners’ entire season squeezed into one ugly night. They continue to be unable to play a complete game. Raleigh’s award already made the 2-4 week look bad. Blowing another game in Boston made the larger problem impossible to ignore.

We can dress up the standings and point out that the AL West remains close. The Mariners entered Tuesday at 64-74, six games behind Houston with 24 games remaining. They remain alive because the division has refused to bury them.

A weekly award doesn’t take away Raleigh’s broader struggles this season, but it proves the difference his bat can still make. For a few games, he looked like the player who terrorized pitchers throughout 2025. The rest of the roster answered that resurgence with sloppy baseball and five straight losses.

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