cal raleigh

SEATTLE — Cal Raleigh tied Mickey Mantle’s season record for most home runs by a switch hitter with his 54th, and the Seattle Mariners extended their winning streak to nine by routing the Angels 11-2 Sunday to take sole possession of the AL West lead for the first time since June.

With the loss, the Angels will finish the year without a winning record for the 10th consecutive season.

George Kirby matched his career high with 14 strikeouts as the Mariners completed a four-game sweep and won for the 20th time in their last 23 home games.

Jorge Polanco had three doubles and has doubles in seven straight games, tying the Mariners’ record.

Seattle (82-68) moved one game ahead of Houston (81-69) at the top of the division, winning nine in a row for the first time since a 14-game streak from July 2-17, 2022, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. The Mariners had not been alone in first place since before play on June 3.

Kirby (9-7) gave up two runs and three hits in 6 1/3 innings, walking none and leaving after 101 pitches. He also struck out 14 Angels on June 8.

Batting left-handed in the first inning, Raleigh had a first-pitch homer to left-center off Kyle Hendricks for a 2-0 lead. Mantle hit his 54 homers for the 1961 New York Yankees. Raleigh’s homer was his record-setting 43rd homer this season as a catcher, one more than Atlanta’s Javy López in 2003.

Hendricks (7-10) gave up nine runs and 10 hits in 3 1/3 innings.

Angels third baseman Yoán Moncada left in the middle of the fifth inning because of a sore left ankle.

Christian Moore and Oswald Peraza hit solo homers for the Angels. Denzer Guzmán got his first two big league hits.

Mike Trout hit a two-run homer in a four-run fifth inning to reach 1,000 career RBIs, and the Angels beat the Seattle Mariners 4-1 on Sunday.

Kyle Hendricks (6-7) gave up one run on two hits over six-plus innings and Kenley Jansen pitched the ninth for his 18th save as the Angels earned a split of the four-game series.

Cal Raleigh hit his major league-leading 41st home run for the Mariners.

The Angels broke a scoreless tie when Kevin Newman’s grounder brought home Travis d’Arnaud in the fifth. Luis Rengifo then scored on Logan Gilbert’s wild pitch.

Trout crushed a 443-foot drive to center field off Gilbert to give him 1,001 RBIs. It was his 397th career homer and 19th this season.

Raleigh connected against Hendricks in the seventh, his second home run in two nights and fourth this year against Los Angeles.

Hendricks, who had one walk and three strikeouts, won for the first time since June 17.

Gilbert (3-4) gave up four runs and three hits over five innings with seven strikeouts.

Key moment: Angels center fielder Jo Adell kept Seattle off the scoreboard in the sixth when he reached above the wall to take away a home run from J.P. Crawford.

Key stat: Trout became the third player to get his first 1,000 RBIs entirely in an Angels uniform, following Garret Anderson and Tim Salmon.

Up next: Angels right-hander Jack Kochanowicz (3-9, 6.03) is expected to start Monday against Texas.

Cal Raleigh became the first player to hit 40 homers this season with a tiebreaking solo shot in the sixth inning of the Seattle Mariners’ 7-2 victory over the Angels on Saturday night.

Raleigh hammered a 97-mph fastball from José Fermin 416 feet into the right-field bleachers for his second homer in eight games since winning the Home Run Derby.

Julio Rodríguez hit his fourth solo homer in three games at Angel Stadium, and Randy Arozarena also connected for the Mariners (56-49).

George Kirby struck out nine over six difficult innings of five-hit ball to earn his fourth win in five starts despite not matching his 14-strikeout performance at Angel Stadium last month. Kirby fanned Luis Rengifo on a slider with the bases loaded to end the sixth.

Taylor Ward hit his 24th homer for the Angels (50-55), who have lost five of six.

Angels star Mike Trout walks back to the dugout after striking out in the first inning of a 7-2 loss to the Seattle Mariners on Saturday night.

(William Liang / Associated Press)

Tyler Anderson yielded six hits and two runs while pitching inefficiently into the fifth. The veteran left-hander and Angels trade candidate has a 5.66 ERA in his last four starts.

Rodríguez connected in the third, adding his 18th homer of the season to his solo shot Thursday and two more in the Mariners’ loss Friday.

Arozarena led off the fourth with his 20th homer, reaching the milestone for the fifth consecutive season.

Yoán Moncada, another Angels trade candidate, left in pain after Kirby’s fastball hit him in the hand. X-rays were negative.

Raleigh is the seventh catcher in major league history to hit 40 homers in a season. It’s been done nine times overall — twice by Johnny Bench and Mike Piazza.

ATLANTA — Seattle’s Cal Raleigh won his first Home Run Derby after leading the big leagues in long balls going into the break, defeating Tampa Bay’s Junior Caminero 18-15 in the final round Monday night.

The Mariners’ breakout slugger nicknamed “Big Dumper” advanced from the first round on a tiebreaker by less than an inch over the Athletics’ Brent Rooker, then won his semifinal 19-13 over Pittsburgh’s Oneil Cruz, whose 513-foot first-round drive over Truist Park’s right-center field seats was the longest of the night.

Hitting second in the final round, the 22-year-old Caminero closed within three dingers, took three pitches and hit a liner to left field.

Becoming the first switch-hitter and first catcher to win the title, Raleigh had reached the All-Star break with a major league-leading 38 home runs. He became the second Mariners player to take the title after three-time winner Ken Griffey Jr.

“Usually the guy that’s leading the league in homers doesn’t win the whole thing,” Raleigh said. “That’s as surprising to me as anybody else.”

Raleigh was pitched to by his father, Todd, former coach of Tennessee and Western Carolina. His younger brother, Todd Raleigh Jr., did the catching.

“Just to do it with my family was awesome,” Raleigh said.

Just the second Derby switch-hitter after Baltimore’s Adley Rutschman in 2023, Raleigh hit his first eight left-handed, took a timeout, then hit seven right-handed. Going back to lefty, he then hit two more in the bonus round and stayed lefty for the semifinals and the final.

Caminero beat Minnesota’s Byron Buxton 8-7 in the other semifinal.

Atlanta’s Matt Olson, Washington’s James Wood, the New York Yankees’ Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Rooker were eliminated in the first round of the annual power show.

Cruz and Caminero each hit 21 long balls and Buxton had 20 in the opening round. Raleigh and Rooker had 17 apiece, but Raleigh advanced on the tiebreaker of their longest homer, 470.61 feet to 470.53.

“One little tweak in the system and I’m not even in the next round, so that’s crazy,” Raleigh said.

Cruz’s long drive was the hardest-hit at 118 mph.

The longest derby homer since Statcast started tracking in 2016 was 520 feet by Juan Soto in the mile-high air of Denver’s Coors Field in 2021. Last year, the longest drive at Arlington, Texas, was 473 feet by Atlanta’s Marcell Ozuna.

Wood hit 16 homers, including a 486-foot shot and one that landed on the roof of the Chop House behind the right-field wall. Olson, disappointing his hometown fans, did not go deep on his first nine swings and finished with 15, He also was eliminated in the first round in 2021.

Chisholm hit just three homers, the fewest since the timer format started in 2015.

Blum writes for the Associated Press.

Jo Adell homered twice, Chris Taylor also went deep and the Angels rallied from four runs down and beat the Seattle Mariners 8-6 on Saturday night.

Cal Raleigh homered twice — giving him a major league-leading 26 — and drove in four runs for the Mariners, who have lost five straight and 12 of their last 17 games.

Angels closer Kenley Jansen, who gave up Raleigh’s solo homer in the ninth, finished up for his 14th save.

Angels teammates Zach Neto, left, and Jo Adell celebrate after an 8-6 win over the Mariners on Saturday.

(Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press)

Taylor replaced injured right fielder Jorge Soler (groin tightness) to start the second and led off with a homer off Mariners right-hander Luis Castillo (4-4). Two outs later, Adell hit a 431-foot solo shot to left-center to trim Seattle’s lead to 4-2.

The Angels took advantage of two Mariners errors to score twice in the third to tie the score 4-4, and Adell’s 445-foot homer to center put them ahead 5-4 in the fourth.

Doubles by Nolan Schanuel and Taylor Ward pushed the lead to 6-4 in the fifth, and Zach Neto’s RBI single made it 7-5 in the sixth. Adell added an RBI single in the seventh for a three-run lead as the Angels scored in six consecutive innings for the first time since 2011.

Adell is 13 for 32 (.406) with five homers, two doubles and nine RBIs in his last 10 games, raising his season average from .184 to .224.

Seattle center fielder Julio Rodríguez, who singled in his first two at-bats, was knocked out of the game in the third after Randy Arozarena’s hard grounder hit him above the right ankle while Rodríguez was trying to steal third base.

Cole Young doubled and scored in the second and hit an RBI single in the sixth for the Mariners.

Connor Brogdon (1-0) replaced Angels starter Jack Kochanowicz with runners on first and third and one out in the fourth. He struck out J.P. Crawford, walked Jorge Polanco and got Leody Taveras to fly out with the bases loaded to preserve a 4-4 tie.

Stephenson out indefinitely

A pair of MRI tests revealed no structural damage to Robert Stephenson’s surgically repaired right elbow, but the Angels reliever was diagnosed with a stretched biceps nerve that will sideline him indefinitely.

“The good news is there’s no major injury or anything. It’s just a matter of how long it’s going to take,” Stephenson said Saturday night before a game against the Seattle Mariners. “It could be something that disappears overnight. It could be something that takes a couple weeks or longer. They’re kind of tricky.”

The 32-year-old Stephenson was expected to be one of the team’s top relievers after signing a three-year, $33-million deal in January 2024, but he missed all of last season after undergoing an ulnar collateral ligament repair with an internal brace in May 2024.