They arrived early to celebrate one Mariners icon.

They stood and cheered late Friday to cheer on another emerging Mariners legend.

With his team trailing by two runs in the bottom of the eighth inning, Cal Raleigh turned on a 2-0 sweeper from Tampa Bay Rays reliever Griffin Jax and launched it 417 feet out to right-center field for a three-run home run, sending the Mariners to a dramatic 3-2 come-from-behind victory in their series opener.

Those are the games you look back on at the end of the year and you’re like, ‘That was a big one,'” Raleigh said. “That was a huge, huge win tonight.”

To kick off Ichiro’s Hall of Fame weekend, fans stood in a line outside T-Mobile Park that stretched several blocks toward Pioneer Square early Friday afternoon.

The announced crowd of 39,780 was one of largest of the season, and virtually everyone was standing in the eighth inning after J.P. Crawford and Cole Young hit back-to-back singles off Jax with one out.

Randy Arozarena popped out for the second out, bringing up Raleigh, who was greeted with “M-V-P!” chants throughout his at-bat.

Those cheers grew even louder after his three-run blast gave the Mariners their first lead on a night they were shut down by Rays starter Drew Rasmussen.

“I was just so excited; I didn’t hear [the chants] during that time,” Raleigh said. “I was just pumped up. That was a sweet go-ahead homer in a big spot.”

It was Raleigh’s 43rd home run of the season, pushing him two ahead of the Phillies’ Kyle Schwarber for the MLB lead. It was also his MLB-leading sixth go-ahead homer in the seventh inning or later.

Raleigh has hit 35 of his homers while in the lineup as the catcher, which ties him with Ivan Rodriguez (1999) for the most home runs in the American League by a catcher. Rodriguez won the AL MVP award that season.

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Raleigh laid off a sweeper just off the plate and then a changeup down to work a 2-0 count against Jax, who was traded from Minnesota to Tampa at the deadline last week. In previous matchups against Raleigh, Jax almost exclusively threw off-speed pitches.

“He’s a really good pitcher; one of the better [relievers] in the league,” Raleigh said. “Really, just started out getting in a good count. I was able to lay off some tough pitches and just looking for something in the heart of the plate, kind of up, and I was able to adjust to the breaking ball.”

It was Raleigh’s first home run in eight days. He was 0 for 3 to start Friday’s game and 2 for 26 to begin August, though his hard-hit data suggests he’d been a little unlucky over the past week.

“For him to be able to just stay locked in and pick up that kind of a home run right there, that’s a clutch at-bat. It’s a clutch home run,” M’s manager Dan Wilson said. “That’s pretty impressive, that he’s able to do it. And that tells me he’s right where he should be.”

The Mariners, 7-1 since the trade-deadline additions of Josh Naylor and Eugenio Suárez to the lineup, are inching closer to where they want to be.

They had won another dramatic game Thursday — on Dominic Canzone’s first career walkoff hit in the 11th inning to complete a sweep of the Chicago White Sox — and at 64-53 they are a season-high 11 games over .500 and remain 1.5 games back of Houston atop the AL West.

“We feel strong,” Raleigh said. “I think it gives everybody a good sense of confidence going into each game. We have guys in the lineup that can get the job done, and it might take a little bit of the pressure off guys, too, you know, not trying to be the hero every single night or trying to feel like the weight’s on their shoulders.

“We have guys who have been there, done that. Guys can drive in a run, steal bags, and it’s kind of contagious. Guys are having really good at-bats and it seems like it’s a different guy every night.

Luis Castillo allowed two runs — on solo homers to Brandon Lowe and Junior Caminero — over seven strong innings to keep the Mariners close.

Carlos Vargas worked a scoreless eighth and Matt Brash struck out the side in the ninth for his second save of the season.

Rasmussen, a Puyallup native who graduated from Mount Spokane High, continued his mastery of the Mariners, allowing only four singles over six shutout innings. He didn’t allow a runner to advance past first base, and he has allowed only one earned run in 20.2 career innings against the Mariners.

NOTE:

Naylor (shoulder) was out of the lineup Friday. Donovan Solano started at first base and singled in his first two at-bats.

BOX SCORE

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