Will Cal Raleigh break Aaron Judge's home run record? Mariners slugger inches closer after two-homer night
Raleigh sits at 56 home runs after Tuesday's monster night at the plate
By
Mike Axisa
•
4 min read
Cal Raleigh's season grows more historic by the day. The Seattle Mariners catcher slugged his 55th and 56th home runs of the season Tuesday night (SEA 12, KC 5), breaking Mickey Mantle's single-season record for home runs by a switch-hitter. Raleigh also tied Ken Griffey Jr.'s franchise record for home runs in a season.
"It's very cool," Raleigh told reporters, including MLB.com, after breaking Mantle's record and tying Griffey's. "Very humbled by it. Crazy kind of thing. I never thought it would happen. It's crazy. Not a lot of words to describe it. Just very grateful for it."
Already this year, Raleigh has set the single-season home run record for a catcher and the single-season home run record for a switch-hitter, and soon he'll set the single-season home run record for a Mariner. There really is only one (realistic) record left to break: the American League's single-season home run record.
With 11 games to play, Raleigh won't catch Barry Bonds (73 in 2001) for baseball's single-season home run record, though the AL record is in play. That record is of course held by New York Yankees captain Aaron Judge, who slugged 62 home runs in 2022. Here is the AL's single-season home run leaderboard:
- Aaron Judge, 2022 Yankees: 62
- Roger Maris, 1961 Yankees: 61
- Babe Ruth, 1927 Yankees: 60
- Babe Ruth, 1921 Yankees: 59
- Jimmie Foxx, 1932 Athletics: 58
- Hank Greenberg, 1938 Tigers: 58
- Aaron Judge, 2024 Yankees: 58
- Alex Rodriguez, 2002 Rangers: 57
- Cal Raleigh, 2025 Mariners: 56 and counting
There have been only nine 60-homer seasons in baseball history and they were accomplished by six players: Bonds (2001), Ruth (1927), Maris (1961), Mark McGwire (1998, 1999), Sammy Sosa (1998, 1999, 2001), and Judge (2022). Raleigh could join that very select group this season. As a catcher, no less. A truly remarkable season, this is.
For now, we'll focus on Judge and the AL's single-season home run record. Here's where Raleigh stands relative to Judge, and what he has to do to catch him.
Pace through 151 team games
There is a chance Raleigh's Mariners and Judge's Yankees will meet in the Wild Card Series. Seattle is a half-game up in the AL West on the Houston Astros, who are in the second wild card spot. If the season ended today, the Astros would go to Yankee Stadium for the Wild Card Series. If the Astros pass the Mariners, it would be the Mariners going to New York. But I digress.
Here's where Raleigh sits relative to Judge at the same point in 2022:
| HR thru 151 team games | Final HR total | |
|---|---|---|
2022 Judge | 60 | 62 |
2025 Raleigh | 56 | ? |
Judge hit his 60th home run in his team's 147th game in 2022. He hit his 56th home run in their 142nd game, so Raleigh is well behind that pace right now. That isn't to say Raleigh can't break Judge's record. It's just that he doesn't have as much time left to do it this year as Judge did when he was chasing Maris in 2022.
What Raleigh has to do
Well, Raleigh has to hit six home runs in Seattle's final 11 games to match Judge and seven home runs to pass him. That's what he has to do. The math is the easy part. Can he do it? Of course he can. At this point it's a question of "will he" more than it is "can he." Here are Raleigh's best non-overlapping 11-game stretches this season:
- May 27 to June 7: 9 HR
- April 11-23: 7 HR
- June 30 to July 12: 6 HR
- Sept. 5-16: 5 HR
Raleigh's hit as many as nine home runs in an 11-game span this year, and on another occasion he hit seven homers in 11 games. That's what he needs to do to break Judge's record: seven homers in the Mariners' final 11 games. Raleigh has had two distinct stretches that productive this season. He's shown he can do it. Now he just has to go do it again.
Will teams pitch to him?
This is perhaps the biggest challenge facing Raleigh. It's not just a question of whether he will hit enough home runs to break Judge's record. It's also a question of whether he'll get any pitches to hit. Judge walked 17 times in his final 13 games and 31 times in his final 26 games in 2022. They were important late-season games and teams didn't want him to beat them.
Raleigh has walked eight times in his last six games and 11 times in his last 10 games. Three of those 11 walks were intentional and several others were of the unintentionally intentional variety. Predictably and understandably, Raleigh has seen fewer and fewer pitches in the zone the last few weeks:
The Mariners will play three tremendously important games in Houston this coming weekend. Given the AL West and wild card races, that could prove to be the single most important series of the 2025 regular season. The Astros have issued the third-fewest intentional walks this year, but that doesn't mean they won't pitch around Raleigh in big spots.
Breaking Judge's record will require one of Raleigh's best hot streaks of the season and also actually getting pitches to hit. He can only control one of those things. If teams don't pitch to Raleigh, then teams don't pitch to him, and it will be that much harder to hit the seven home runs he needs to become the AL's single-season home run king.
