Seattle Mariners feeling loss of Luke Raley during slide

The Seattle Mariners enjoyed an improved offense in April as they built a lead in the AL West, but both of those things are distant memories now.

Following a series sweep at the hands of a struggling Baltimore Orioles team, the Mariners enter Friday trailing Houston in the division with a 32-29 record, having lost six of their last eight games and eight of their 11.

Mariners are losing identity that made offense thrive

A look at the scores of those last 11 games tell the story, because the Mariners have scored at least five runs in just four of those contests. Over that stretch, Seattle is averaging only three runs per game.

We’ve seen that when things are going well for the Mariners’ offense, they’re hitting home runs. And yes, Seattle has the MLB leader in Cal Raleigh, who has 24 this season. But he’s really the only M’s player consistently leaving the ballpark right now.

After hitting 45 homers in their first 30 games in March and April, the Mariners have 36 in the 31 games in May and June. That’s a problem, because as Luke Arkins of the Mariners Consigliere newsletter pointed out Friday, the M’s are 2-14 in games where they don’t hit a single home run, which is an MLB-low .125 winning percentage.

For Seattle Sports’ Mike Salk, there’s an injured player whose absence is particularly being felt in that crucial area.

“For all of the conversation about injuries this year, we’ve not really talked much about Luke Raley going down,” he said on Thursday’s edition of Brock and Salk. “And I think maybe we should.”

Raley is a power-hitting presence from the left side of the plate, having hit 22 home runs in 137 games last year – with 15 coming at Seattle’s T-Mobile Park, a notoriously tough park on hitters, especially if they’re in their first year with the Mariners.

“He’s a good player. He showed it last year,” Salk continued. “… Certainly (Raley had) one of the best years we’ve ever seen of a player showing up at T-Mobile for the first time. Instead of going into a shell, he was unbelievable last year. He was better than he’d been in Tampa and earned himself pretty close to an everyday gig.”

Raley does what M’s are missing

Raley appeared in 24 games this season before a right oblique strain landed him on the injured list in late April. He was the second of Seattle’s right fielders to suffer a long-term injury, coming a few weeks after Victor Robles fractured his left shoulder, which shifted Raley back to the outfield after coming into the season figuring to see most of his playing time at first base.

While the M’s have since added Leody Tavares to play right, the speedy switch-hitter provides neither the slugging of Raley nor the bat-to-ball skills of Robles.

Salk explained why he thinks the loss of Raley is being felt most in this respect.

“Maybe they’re missing him more than we think. I think they’ve been able to survive the the loss of Robles, maybe because I never fully believed that Robles was a sustainable thing. I’m psyched about what he did and if it continues, great, but betting on Robles was always going to be a challenge for me, just like betting on (Jorge) Polanco was always gonna be a challenge for me.

“But I think I’ve gotta give a little bit more credit to Luke Raley and what he accomplished last year. … He does the things that they’re missing. He hits home runs, he gets on base, he takes his walks, he has good at-bats, he’s flexible – he can move into the outfield so you don’t have to play the same guys every day (and) he’s a decent first baseman.”

There has been good news recently about Raley, with Mariners general manager Justin Hollander saying that he was expected to start a minor league rehab assignment this week. That has Salk hopeful Raley could be a spark that helps the M’s get out of their offensive funk.

“I’m not saying the Mariners have lost their their offensive juice because Luke Raley got hurt,” Salk said. “I’m just saying we’ve barely mentioned it, and I think that’s probably not giving him enough credit for what he did last year and what I think they were hoping he could do this year before he got hurt.”

Listen to the full conversation starting around the 37-minute mark of the podcast below. Brock and Salk airs from 6-10 a.m. weekdays on Seattle Sports.

Seattle Mariners feeling loss of Luke Raley during slide

Tags: