When 19-year-old Mickey Mantle stepped onto the diamond for his big league debut on April 17, 1951, the single-season high mark for home runs by a switch-hitter rested at 35, courtesy of Ripper Collins’ efforts representing the 1934 Cardinals. When the 1955 campaign came to a close, the mark was Mantle’s, after the center fielder claimed his first AL home run belt with 37. A year later, Mantle heaved the bar all the way to an astounding 52 as part of his Triple Crown. A half-decade later, Mantle relocated the height yet again, this time all the way to 54. In the 63 succeeding years, only 20 batters were able to match or exceed Mantle’s apex – an octet of exclusive swingers from the left side, a dozen from the right side, exactly zero who worked both sides of the batter’s box. And then along came Cal Raleigh.
Philadelphia’s Kyle Schwarber launched his 52nd home run of the year; Seattle’s Cal Raleigh clocked his 54th of the campaign. The respective league-leaders make the 2025 season the 10th ever to have multiple players rise so high:
Seasons With Multiple Players Having 52+ HRs
2001: Barry Bonds (73), Sammy Sosa (64), Luis Gonzalez (57), Álex Rodríguez (52)
1998: Mark McGwire (70), Sammy Sosa (66), Ken Griffey, Jr. (56)
1961: Roger Maris (61) and Mickey Mantle (54)
1997: Mark McGwire (58) and Ken Griffey, Jr. (56)
1999: Mark McGwire (65) and Sammy Sosa (63)
2002: Álex Rodríguez (57) and Jim Thome (52)
2006: Ryan Howard (58) and David Ortiz (54)
2017: Giancarlo Stanton (59) and Aaron Judge (52)
2024: Aaron Judge (58) and Shohei Ohtani (54)
2025: Cal Raleigh (54) and Kyle Schwarber (52)
~Schwarber’s 52 tie him with Mickey Mantle (1956), Willie Mays (1965), George Foster (1977), Mark McGwire (1996), Álex Rodríguez (2001), Jim Thome (2002) and Aaron Judge (2017) for 34th all-time. Raleigh’s 54 match him with Babe Ruth (1920, 1928), Ralph Kiner (1949), Mickey Mantle (1961), David Ortiz (2006), Álex Rodríguez (2007), José Bautista (2010), Matt Olson (2023) and Shohei Ohtani (2024) for the 22nd most.
~Schwarber has 51 home runs as a DH, the second most ever in a season, behind Shohei Ohtani’s 54 in 2024. Raleigh has 43 home runs as a catcher, now the most ever (he had been tied with Javy López from 2003).
~Raleigh is now tied with Mickey Mantle (54 in 1961) for the most home runs in a season for a switch-hitter.
Aided by Cal Raleigh’s home run and Jorge Polanco’s three doubles, the Mariners notched their ninth win in a row – the club’s longest winning streak since claiming 14 straight victories in 2022. This nine-game run ties for the fifth longest for the franchise, with 15 in a row in 2001 at the top.
~Polanco has posted a double in seven straight games, tying Jim Presley (1986) for the longest streak in franchise history. In the Modern Era, Presley and Polanco are two of 17 players with a streak stretching to at least seven games, with Bo Bichette’s nine-game run in 2019 holding as the longest.
George Kirby also played a large role in Seattle’s win, fanning 14 with zero walks. In the Modern Era, there are 125 lines featuring at least 14 K’s and no walks, with Kirby now responsible for the last two (he posted his first on June 8 of this season). There’s a baker’s dozen worth of hurlers who’ve authored two (or more) such games in a season:
(3) Roger Clemens (1997), Randy Johnson (2001), Yu Darvish (2013), Gerrit Cole (2019), Jacob deGrom (2021)
(2) Larry Dierker (1969), Dwight Gooden (1984), Pedro Martínez (1999, 2000), Masahiro Tanaka (2017), Walker Buehler (2019), Chris Sale (2019), George Kirby (2025)
Salvador Perez drove in five runs on a single and a home run, upping his career totals to 1,005 RBI and 301 longballs. The Royals’ backstop joins a collection of 106 others to have reached 300 and 1,000 through an age-35 campaign, a coterie that includes four other catchers: Yogi Berra, Johnny Bench, Gary Carter and Mike Piazza.
~Perez faces the final two weeks of the year with 23 walks to accompany his 28 home runs, possibly in line for his seventh season featuring at least 20 home runs and more longballs than walks. No player in history has this many, as Juan González had six and Tony Armas had five.
Hitting at the top of the order, Toronto’s George Springer had three extra-base hits (two doubles, a home run).
~Springer has started 26 games this season as the club’s leadoff hitter and while there, is doing a fair imitation of Lou Gehrig’s career slash line (.340/.447/.632 for Gehrig; .343/.437/.716 for Springer).
~Springer is one of 58 players since 1901 to have logged at least 1,000 starts in the top spot in the order; in all his time as a team’s number #1 hitter, he owns an 8.86 extra-base hit percentage. Among the 58, that figure comes in as the fifth highest, behind marks from Mookie Betts (11.25%), Charlie Blackmon (9.90), Jimmy Rollins (9.21) and Ian Kinsler (9.15).
Pete Alonso’s three-run dinger in the bottom of the 10th gave the Mets a win and the first baseman his fifth career walk-off home run. And that, that quintet, makes the franchise’s all-time home leader also its all-time leader in game-ending longballs. Before the big swing, Alonso had been matched with Cleon Jones, Kevin McReynolds, Chris Jones, Mike Piazza and Wilmer Flores.
Some rivalry-related trivia from Boston’s win over New York on Sunday …
~Aaron Judge hit his 48th home run of the year, his fifth of the season against the Red Sox and the 34th of his career against Boston. For Yankees versus Red Sox, through any player’s first 10 seasons, those 34 tie Judge with Joe DiMaggio for the third most behind Mickey Mantle’s 45 and Lou Gehrig’s 42. Flipped, Ted Williams (42) has the most for Boston against New York through his first 10 campaigns, followed by Rafael Devers (31) and Carl Yastrzemski (25). When Babe Ruth’s turn on both sides of the rivalry is summed, he hit 38 through his first decade.
~Garrett Crochet struck out 12 Yankees, the 13th Red Sox pitcher to fan at least a dozen against New York. This work goes back to Cy Young in 1905 and includes three appearances from Pedro Martínez, who can claim the highest single-game tally – 17 K’s in September of 1999. On the flip side, there are 13 Yankees to ring up at least 12 Red Sox batters, a lineage that starts with Hank Johnson in 1931. Mike Mussina is the only Pinstriped rep to show up more than once, and Mussina shares the high mark of 13, along with Bob Turley in 1955 and Roger Clemens in 2000. Mussina’s 13 came in his one-batter-shy-of-a-perfect-game effort in September of 2001. In all, Clemens, performing on both sides of the rivalry, appears three times
Tampa Bay’s Junior Caminero clubbed his 44th home run of the year. The third baseman, whose 44 are second to only Eddie Mathews’ 47 in 1953 for the most ever for a player in an age-21 or younger season, has 72 extra-base hits and 308 total bases on the year; while not as contextually spectacular as his 44 homers, the tallies still place him among some heavy duty names. For all players in age-21 or younger seasons:
~Caminero’s 72 extra-base hits tie for the 12th most, where he and Andruw Jones (1998) are sandwiched between Henry Aaron (73 in 1955) and Frank Robinson (1956) and Juan Soto (2019), each with 71.
~Caminero’s 308 total bases tie for the 22nd most, where he and Vada Pinson (1960) are just behind Orlando Cepeda (1958) and Miguel Cabrera (2004), each with 309.
On the strength of his fourth straight multi-hit game, Cubs second baseman Nico Hoerner lifted his average to .299 – second in the NL behind Trea Turner’s .305. A Cubs second baseman was last seen winning an NL batting title in 1876, when Ross Barnes owned the top mark in the circuit’s inaugural season. This potential rarity is in stark contrast to second basemen – affiliated elsewhere over the last decade – having the batting crown, with DJ LeMahieu (2020), Jeff McNeil (2022) and Luis Arráez (2023) claiming recent belts. In the mid to late teens this century, there were a bunch, too: Jose Altuve in 2014, 2016 and 2017; Dee Strange-Gordon in 2015, LeMahieu in 2016.
Nick Kurtz climbed to 32 home runs, a tally that has been surpassed by only eight first-year players in history. Kurtz and those ahead of him are listed below, with the player’s age-season in parentheses.
Most HR by a First-Year Player
53 Pete Alonso (24) in 2019
39 Cody Bellinger (21) in 2017
38 Wally Berger (24) in 1930
38 Frank Robinson (20) in 1956
37 Albert Pujols (21) in 2001
36 José Abreu (27) in 2014
34 Ryan Braun (23) in 2007
33 Jimmie Hall (25) in 1963
32 Nick Kurtz (22) in 2025
Keider Montero started and went the first five frames before a trio of Tigers relievers kept the flow going – all resulting in a seven-hit, 2-0 win that gave Detroit its 17th team shutout of the year. The Tigers last had at least 17 in a season in 1969, when Denny McLain and company (McLain had nine shutouts himself that season to lead the league) contributed to 20.
In a loss to the Padres, Mickey Moniak went 4-for-4 with two home runs, two steals and five RBI. Dating back to 1901, the Rockies’ outfielder is the fifth batter to post a multi-homer, multi-steal line with at least five RBI. Two of the five have come out of a Colorado-San Diego matchup, this one and the one from June 27, 1994, when Colorado’s Dante Bichette did the work in a win. The three others: Gary Sheffield in 1995, Brandon Phillips in 2015 and Shohei Ohtani in 2024.
Thanks to Baseball Reference and its extraordinary research database, Stathead, for help in assembling this piece.
Roger Schlueter
As Sr. Editorial Director for Major League Baseball Productions from 2004-2015, Roger served as a hub for hundreds of hours of films, series, documentaries and features: as researcher, fact-checker, script doctor, and developer of ideas. The years at MLB Production gave him the ideal platform to pursue what galvanized him the most – the idea that so much of what takes place on the field during the MLB regular and postseason (and is forever beautifully condensed into a box score) has connections to what has come before. Unearthing and celebrating these webs allows baseball to thrive, for the present can come alive and also reignite the past.