Cal Raleigh hit his 48th and 49th homers in consecutive at-bats, breaking the single-season catcher home run record previously held by Salvador Perez. Raleigh reached 30 home runs in each of the prior two seasons, and nine of his current season homers came while serving as a designated hitter. Perez hit 15 homers as a DH during his 48-homer campaign. The most home runs while exclusively playing catcher remains Javy Lopez's 42 in 2003, a season that produced a .328/.378/.687 line and a 1.065 OPS. Raleigh is closing in on 50 homers and his season is being compared to other surprising 50-homer campaigns.
Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh blasted his 48th and 49th home runs on Sunday in back-to-back at-bats in the first two innings against the Athletics, breaking Salvador Perez's record for most home runs in a season by a catcher. While Raleigh's season hasn't exactly come out of nowhere -- he reached 30 home runs the previous two years -- the fact that we're not even in September yet certainly makes his power exploits even more impressive.
So, is this the greatest power-hitting season ever from a catcher? If you want to get technical about it, this is open for discussion. Like Perez with the Kansas City Royals in 2021, Raleigh has benefited from some DH time, with nine of his home runs coming as a DH. Perez's figures were even more extreme, with 15 of his 48 home runs coming as a DH.
The record for home runs while only playing catcher belongs to Javy Lopez, who hit 42 for the Atlanta Braves in 2003 in just 117 games (he hit one more as a pinch-hitter). That was an insane season for Lopez, who hit .328/.378/.687 with a 1.065 OPS. He fell seven plate appearances short of the 502 needed for official qualification,
Collection
[
|
...
]