Luke

Raley

Raley was one of the only bright spots in the Mariners lineup on Saturday as the team was shut out by Stephen Kolek. Raley had hits in every plate appearance, collecting three of the team’s four hits on the day, including a double. The 31-year-old slugger is hitting .276/.338/.567 with 10 homers, 19 runs scored, and 27 RBI across 140 plate appearances. He continues to see time on the strong side of a platoon in right field, though a .362 BABIP with a 34.3 percent strikeout rate suggests he’s been fortunate with his playing time so far.

Raley also had 105- and 98-mph lineouts to go along with his 102-mph homer and 108-mph groundball single today. That ups his hard-hit rate to 57.1 percent. As a platoon guy, he doesn’t have enough plate appearances to qualify for leaderboards, but only six hitters have better hard-hit rates this season (Munetaka Murakami, James Wood, Oneil Cruz, Nick Kurtz, Ben Rice and Michael Harris II).

This was the Luke Raley game. His third inning grand slam momentarily broke this game open before the White Sox stormed back in the bottom of the frame. Then, he pushed their lead back to four with a three-run home run in the seventh that effectively put this game away. He only has four hits over the past week, but three have gone over the fence and have brought his total to eight on the season along with an .890 OPS.

Raley continues to rake, and absolutely clobbered a homer off Nathan Eovaldi that would have been a homer in all 30 parks with an expected batting average of .830. The 31-year-old has run hot-and-cold throughout his career, but obviously this is a hot streak. Fantasy managers could do worse than Raley as one of their final outfielders, but have to keep in mind he’s not going to play against lefties.

His homer was a 434-footer, and he also had a 390-foot double that would have been a homer in 16 ballparks, according to Statcast. Raley currently has a 1.035 OPS that’s about twice as high as three of the five guys ahead of him in the Seattle lineup. Maybe that could lead to some sort of shakeup, but we’ll see.

Today’s game was the second of the year in which the Mariners had to sit either Raley or Dominic Canzone against a righty with Cal Raleigh DHing. Raley has gotten the start both times, and it’s been a pretty easy call. He has the better offensive numbers, even if their xwOBAs are practically identical, and he has the better glove in right field, as he showed off while making the next-to-last out today on a jumping catch at the wall. Canzone hasn’t even gotten a start in the outfield yet this season. Raley, now hitting .294/.345/.569, still hasn’t started any games against lefties, but that might happen while Victor Robles is on the IL.

Raley doubled twice, and his second two-bagger drove in a pair of runs to extend Seattle’s lead to 6-1. The 31-year-old hasn’t homered since going deep in the first three games, but his overall slash of .255/.314/.532 will certainly play.

Donovan exited Saturday’s game with leg discomfort, and he unsurprisingly will miss at least one more contest. Luke Raley is moving up to the leadoff spot with Donovan out, and Leo Rivas will handle third base and hit ninth.

After sitting two straight games against left-handed starters, Raley will be back in the starting lineup today. The bad news is that he’s facing Cam Schlittler and then will likely sit again on Friday when the Mariners face left-hander Reid Detmers. Raley will have some value in fantasy leagues, but you need to be in a format where it’s easy to bench him when the Mariners face a lot of lefties.

No surprise here with Yankees ace Max Fried taking the ball on Tuesday night at T-Mobile Park. Dominic Canzone is also taking a seat in this one. Raley will continue sitting against most left-handed starters, but he’ll do enough damage against righties to have some appeal in deeper mixed leagues. It’ll be Victor Robles in right field with lefty-masher Rob Refsnyder at DH.