Mariners’ Missed Opportunities Ruin Cal Raleigh’s First Home Run of the Season

Seattle got the early swing it needed, a solid Logan Gilbert start, and still could not do enough to avoid another one-run defeat.

Cal Raleigh (29) rounds the bases after he hits a home run against the Texas Rangers during the first inning at Globe Life Field. | Jerome Miron-Imagn Images

Cal Raleigh gave the Mariners an early jolt Monday night. After falling behind 0-2 against Jacob deGrom, he kept spoiling pitches, stretched the at-bat to 12 pitches, and then turned on a 99.1 mph fastball for a 418-foot homer to right. Twelve pitches. First inning. First home run of the season. Against one of the nastiest arms of this era. That should have been the kind of swing that set a tone for the night. Instead, it turned into the only real offense Seattle could find. 

That is what made the Mariners’ 2-1 loss to the Rangers on April 6 so frustrating. Jacob deGrom turned back the clock, and Logan Gilbert pitched well enough to win. Seattle landed an early punch, got a strong outing from its ace, and still spent the rest of the night looking like a lineup waiting for somebody else to do the heavy lifting. Texas and its bullpen held the Mariners to just two hits all night. 

Absolutely dumped. pic.twitter.com/9tluVHdqMx

— Seattle Mariners (@Mariners) April 7, 2026

Mariners Squander Cal Raleigh’s First Home Run in Third Straight One-Run Defeat

That’s just not good enough. Not against deGrom. Not against a division rival. And not against anyone quite frankly. This was Seattle’s third straight one-run loss, and that is where the annoyance level starts to rise a little higher than the usual early-April “it’s a long season” shrug. Yes, it is early. But these are still bankable games, and the Mariners have let them leak out. 

The brutal part is that Gilbert gave them every reason to hang around. He worked through six innings, allowed six hits, gave up two earned runs, walked nobody, and struck out five. That is a winning-caliber outing most nights, or at the very least one that should not get hung with another tough-luck loss. But when your offense produces two total hits and strands what little traffic it creates, even a good start starts to feel wasted in real time. 

The Mariners are not getting blown off the field every night. That would almost be easier to dismiss as random ugliness. Instead, they are hanging around just enough to make the ending sting worse, then giving games away with the little stuff, a wild pitch here, a Josh Naylor throwing error there. That is the kind of pattern that sticks to a team if it doesn’t get cleaned up. Fans remember the April losses that looked small at the time once the standings get tight in September.

Raleigh at least gave them something worth appreciating. After opening the season in a clear power drought, he finally broke through in a huge way. It was the third time in his career he had homered in an at-bat of 10 or more pitches, and the most pitches deGrom has ever thrown in an at-bat ending in a hit. That is a grown-man at-bat from one of the few hitters in this lineup who can actually tilt a game with one swing. 

Which is exactly why the rest of the lineup wasting it feels so loud. Cal Raleigh finally delivered his first homer of the season. The Mariners should have done something with it. Instead, they gave him a brilliant moment and then buried it under another one-run loss that already feels a little too familiar.