The Seattle Mariners Suddenly Have a Lot of Pressure on Jorge Polanco and Randy Arozarena

Take Saturday night for instance: The Mariners beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 1-0, but Raleigh walked three times, including once by intentional walk. That will happen increasingly more often as the season moves on. Opponents want no part of his 35 home runs if they can avoid it.

Take these notes from Mariners PR:

--Cal Raleigh drew 3 walks, including an intentional walk in the 3rd inning…it marked his 14th multi-walk game this season which is tied for the 2nd-most multi-walk games this season, alongside Aaron Judge-NYY, trailing Juan Soto-NYM (15 G).
--He was intentionally walked for the 11th time this season which is tied for the 9th-most intentional walks in the first half of a season in Mariners history, alongside Edgar Martínez (1995) and Ichiro Suzuki (2009)…his 11 intentional walks are the 2nd-most in MLB this season, trailing only Aaron Judge-NYY (23 IBB).
--It also marked the 2nd time this season he has been intentionally walked in the 3rd inning or earlier (also: 6/27 at TEX).

The Mariners enter play on Sunday at 47-42 and in possession of the third and final wild card spot in the American League.

They'll take on the Pirates again at 1:10 p.m. PT. before a much-needed off day.