The Seattle Mariners and Detroit Tigers don’t like each other. There’s no major secret about that, as that conflict dates back to last season’s ALDS. Earlier this year, the Tigers feuded with Josh Naylor, who successfully got in Detroit’s head and the end result he wanted — a benches-clearing incident. Wednesday night offered more of the same, but it was Cal Raleigh at the center of it all.
Raleigh’s had a rough year. The Mariners backstop is hitting just .162 with a .574 OPS, a solid 200 points lower than his career average. Seattle manager Dan Wilson has moved Raleigh down to sixth in the order, hoping it could revive a bat that hit 60 home runs last season. On Wednesday, Raleigh was plunked (unintentionally, the Tigers say) in the bottom of the seventh inning. It was the most notable HBP of the five players who were hit by Mariners and Tigers pitchers throughout the night. The boiling point occurred in the next inning, when Seattle hit Gleyber Torres on the second of back-to-back inside fastballs.
Tigers and Mariners cleared the benches after Mariners pitcher Gabe Speier plunked Gleyber Torres half an inning after Cal Raleigh was hit by a pitch pic.twitter.com/fjEuCkRnMJ
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) August 6, 2026
“I guess they protected Raleigh,” Torres said after the game. “I don’t think we hit Raleigh on purpose. But that’s baseball. That’s their guy and I know they try to protect him.”
Cal Raleigh is at the center of latest Mariners drama
By no means is Raleigh alone to blame for the Mariners feud with Detroit. While Tigers relief pitcher Enmanuel De Jesus did hit Raleigh with a pitch, it came with two strikes, as Torres said postgame when defending the 29-year-old.
“I don’t have any issues, and I don’t tell any wrong thing to Raleigh,” Torres said. “I just told him I don’t really believe we hit him on purpose. I also, before the at-bat, asked how he was doing. Hit-by-pitches are never fun. And when they hit me, I just tried to tell him, ‘De Jesus hit you with two strikes. Wasn’t on purpose.'”
What specifically rubbed AJ Hinch and the Tigers the wrong way is that the Mariners tried to hit Torres or back-to-back pitches. Mariners reliever Gabe Speier was eventually ejected for doing so, especially once a conversation between Torres and Raleigh escalated a benches-clearing incident.
“I think the back-to-back pitches in a weird spot to Gleyber, one of them smoking him, created a lot of emotions,” Hinch said. “We all end up on the field, umpires met and deemed it intentional enough to throw him out. I know it came right after Cal got smoked, which is what makes it a little uncomfortable for everybody.”
Cal Raleigh’s season full of drama
Raleigh’s drama-filled season started with a handshake snub. In the World Baseball Classic, Raleigh refused to dap up Randy Arozarena, playing for Mexico, when he stepped into the batter’s box against Team USA. It was a horrendous look between two Mariners teammates, and led to Arozarena calling out Raleigh publicly.
“The only thing he should be thankful for is having such great parents,”Arozarena told Mexican journalist Luis Gilbert in Spanish in March. “He’s very well educated, thank God. I was lucky enough to see them a few days ago at the hotel. They came over to greet me, gave me a big hug, and were genuinely proud to see me again.”
Arozarena then went on to tell Raleigh personally to ‘f*** off’ and ‘go to hell’.
The pair reconciled in spring training, with Raleigh initiating a conversation between the two. Arozarena released a statement saying he didn’t want to be a distraction for the Mariners moving forward, as if that weren’t already the case. All of it — and I mean all of it — could’ve been solved with a simple handshake. Instead, Raleigh put his own pride over the Mariners clubhouse camaraderie.
Thankfully when it came time for the Mariners to stand up for Raleigh, they were up for the task.
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