Raleigh hits 55th HR to break Mantle's switch-hitter record

Move over, Mick. Cal Raleigh is now the switch-hitting single-season home-run king.

The Seattle Mariners catcher hit his 55th home run of the 2025 season Tuesday at Kauffman Stadium, breaking Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle's switch-hitter record that had stood since 1961. Raleigh's historic blast came in the third inning off Kansas City Royals pitcher Michael Wacha.

But Raleigh wasn't done there. In his next at-bat, the 28-year-old crushed his 56th homer of the year to tie Ken Griffey Jr.'s Mariners single-season record.

Raleigh and Mantle, who did it twice, are the only switch-hitters to ever launch 50 homers in a single season. Lance Berkman and Chipper Jones are the only others to even have a 45-homer campaign hitting from both sides.

The year was already a record-setting one for Raleigh prior to Tuesday. No primary catcher had ever hit more than 48 homers in a season before Raleigh broke Salvador Perez's record in August, and it's only the ninth time a backstop has surpassed the 40-homer mark, according to Stathead. He's hit 45 of his 56 homers while in the lineup at catcher, also a single-season record.

Tuesday also marked Raleigh's 10th multi-homer game of 2025. He's now one shy of tying that single-season record, according to Sarah Langs of MLB.com.

Raleigh's hitting .248/.362/.592 with an AL-best 118 RBIs over 655 plate appearances this season. Despite playing the majority of his games behind the plate, he also leads the majors in homers and places third in OPS.