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Of all the players on the Mariners' active roster, perhaps no player needs a day off from the rigors of the baseball season more than catcher Cal Raleigh.
In the Mariners' 3-2 victory over the Angels on Wednesday afternoon, Raleigh's body — most of the area unprotected by catcher's gear — continued to be a target for foul balls and wayward pitches.
"It does feel like it has been happening a bit more lately," Raleigh said. "That's how it goes."
Raleigh took a foul tip off his right thigh early in the game that left him in obvious pain.
"The ink from the ball was on his uniform it hit him so hard," manager Scott Servais said.
In the eighth inning, while catching Matt Brash, Raleigh took a foul tip off his right ankle that had him face down on the ground in agony. Two pitches later, he took a foul tip off his protective cup.
"Yeah, that wasn't good," Raleigh said.
Does he plan to spend his off day in an ice bath?
"I don't know yet," he said. "I will probably rest and maybe run some errands, do some laundry."
Ahh, the glamorous life of a professional baseball player.
"It's going to feel good for everybody," he said. "It's just as much as it is mentally as what it does physically. It'll be nice to kind of get away, relax, take a breath and come back refreshed on Friday."
When Tom Murphy went on the 10-day injured list with a sprained left thumb on Aug. 13, Raleigh moved from the lead catcher with more of a shared role to the almost everyday catcher.
Since Murphy was injured, Raleigh has played in all but one of the Mariners' last 28 games. He's started 23 of them.
"I can't say enough," Servais said, mentioning last season when Raleigh played the final month of the season with a torn ligament in his catching thumb. "He posts. He's there every day. He gets here earlier than anybody else except for maybe Julio (Rodriguez). It's a football mentality, and you have to have that when you are behind the plate taking a beating like he does."
Raleigh has hit 28 homers this season, which is the most among all catchers in MLB.
Kelenic dealing with sore right foot
Jarred Kelenic was out of the starting lineup for a second straight game after fouling a ball off his right foot in his first game back from being on the injured list for a broken left foot.
"The tests, everything that we did yesterday, came back negative," Servais said. "He's a little sore."
The Mariners wanted to avoid using him Wednesday to couple that with the off day to give him an extra day off and have him ready for the weekend series against the Dodgers.
Notes
* Luis Castillo has pitched at least five innings in all 30 of his starts this season, which is most in MLB. The Mariners are 9-0 over Castillo's last 9 starts since July 30.
* With his quality start on Wednesday, the Mariners have three pitchers with 17 or more quality starts this season — Castillo, Logan Gilbert, George Kirby. No other MLB team even has three pitchers with 15+ QS this season.
