Cal Raleigh hits 60th homer as Mariners clinch AL West

Cal Raleigh hit the 60th home run of his season on Wednesday night, finishing a two-homer performance that helped the Seattle Mariners beat the Colorado Rockies 9-2 at T-Mobile Park and clinch the American League West title. The milestone made Raleigh the seventh player in major league history to reach 60 homers in a season and the first catcher to do so, with four regular-season games remaining.

Raleigh opened the scoring in the first inning with a leadoff shot to the top deck in right field off Tanner Gordon, and added a two-out solo homer in the eighth off Angel Chivilli. Julio Rodríguez and Jorge Polanco also homered in the first inning off Gordon, and Eugenio Suárez added his 48th in the seventh. Starter Luis Castillo worked 7 1/3 innings of one-run ball, and the victory was the Mariners' 16th in 17 games.

The homer total ties a 60-home-run mark reached only a handful of times in baseball history and surpasses several franchise and positional records. Raleigh broke Ken Griffey Jr.'s single-season Mariners mark earlier in the month and exceeded Mickey Mantle's switch-hitter mark of 54. He also set a new single-season record for home runs by a catcher, passing the previous...