Raleigh's historic homer, Young's mammoth blast power Mariners past Rangers

Adam Jude, The Seattle Times on Aug 1, 2025

Published in Baseball

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

SEATTLE — An old star returned.

A new one emerged.

And the biggest one did what he does best.

The vibes were high all around Thursday night for the new-look Seattle Mariners, whose 6-0 victory over the rival Texas Rangers put the finishes touches on Eugenio Suárez’s storybook return to Seattle.

Rookie Cole Young hit his first home run at T-Mobile Park and added the first triple of his MLB career, continuing to show why the Mariners are so bullish on the 22-year-old second baseman’s future.

And Cal Raleigh reached another notable milestone with his 42nd homer of the season in the Mariners’ series-opening win over the Rangers.

Young’s blast reached the second deck at the Hit It Here Cafe, and it was initially estimated by MLB’s Statcast metrics at a distance of 470 feet, which would have tied Mike Zunino for the longest homer at T-Mobile Park since 2015. MLB, however, was reevaluating the Statcast reading.

Raleigh hit a towering homer off Kumar Rocker that just cleared the wall in right field. Raleigh surpassed Todd Hundley (41 homers in 1996) for the most home runs by a switch-hitting catcher in MLB history.

Raleigh continues to chase down Salvador Perez’s record of 48 homers in a season by a catcher.

The Mariners catcher now has 88 RBIs on the season, moving him one ahead of Suárez for the MLB lead.

Suárez doubled in the fourth inning and scored the game’s first run on a Rocker wild pitch.

Suárez, acquired late Wednesday from the Arizona Diamondbacks for three prospects, finished 1 for 4 in his return to Seattle.

The crowd of 28,293 gave Suárez a standing ovation before his first plate appearance in the second inning.

George Kirby, meanwhile, had one of his most promising starts of the season, throwing six shutout innings with three hits, two walks and six strikeouts.

The game ended on an especially sour note for the Mariners when reliever Trent Thornton injured his lower left leg while running to cover first base with two outs in the top of the ninth inning.

Thornton was in obvious discomfort and a cart had to be called onto the field to carry him off. There was no immediate update on his status.