Cal Raleigh may be heading down frustrating path Orioles fans know all too well

For the first few years of their careers, Adley Rutschman and Cal Raleigh were seen as peers competing for the title of best catcher in the league. This was a competition that, for a while, Rutschman appeared to be winning. At the 2024 All-Star Game, Rutschman was the starting catcher in the AL. He was on pace to finish the season with career highs in homers and RBI. He had gotten MVP votes the previous two seasons and was the defending Silver Slugger at the catching position. Raliegh, at the time, was seen as the better defensive catcher, but the title of best catcher in the league was held in Baltimore. Then Rutschman slumped, and Raleigh surged to finish the 2024 season.

Then 2025 happened. Raleigh was an MVP candidate and hit 60 homers, while Rutshman had the worst season of his career, putting up career lows in every single offensive stat. The gulf between the seasons was so large that it felt inconceivable that there had ever been a debate as to which catcher was better. Raleigh was suddenly a legend, and everyone was left asking, "What's wrong with Adley Rutschman?"

Now, in 2026, the roles are reversed again. Rutschman looks the best he has in years, and everyone is asking, "What's wrong with Cal Raleigh?"

The answer to both questions is the same. They hurt their obliques.

Cal Raleigh is living the 2025 Adley Rutschman experience

Rutschman and Raliegh are physically very similar. Rutschman comes in at 6'1 230 and Raleigh at 6'2 235. They obviously both play the same position, and they are both switch hitters.

Rutschman has never come out and shared exactly what was going wrong at the end of 2024, but in 2025, he spent time on the IL with injuries to both obliques. Raleigh just went on the IL for the first time in his career with an oblique strain.

The oblique is an important muscle for any player, for any hitter, but especially for switch-hitters, it's a bothersome place to deal with discomfort. Then add catching into the mix, and you can imagine how an abdominal injury would be annoying if half your job was spent in a squat.

For Rutschman, the injury completely sapped his power. He still had excellent plate discipline and a decent swing for contact, so he wasn't getting blown by, but many of the balls that he would usually hammer for extra base hits turned into weak fly balls and pop-outs.

For Raleigh, the impact is similar. Ralieh's elite skill is pulling the ball in the air, so he's been able to mask some of his struggles by pulling a few balls over the fence, but even with those few homers in the bank, his power stats have taken a nosedive.

This is compounded by Raleigh's lack of plate discipline. Even at his best, Raleigh does a bit of a high-wire act where he chases and swings and misses a lot in his quest to pull fly balls in the air. Now that he's dealing with an injury that makes swinging the bat uncomfortable, the chases, whiffs, and strikeouts have reached an untenable level, and he looks like the worst hitter in baseball.

Blaming underperformance on injury feels like excuse-making, and it's boring. It would be a lot more interesting if there was some mental block going on where Raleigh was thinking about homers too much and that was making him strike out. It would also be more interesting if there were some mechanical change he could make that would click his bat back into home run hitting mode.

There's not, though. He injured a muscle, which is making it very difficult to hit baseballs, and that's the end of the story. He's not going to perform better until he takes off enough time for the muscle to heal. Which he isn't likely to do.

This is where the similarities between Rutschman and Raleigh continue. Rutschman did go on IL but rushed back both times to try to help the team, and both times was ineffective and then got hurt again. If the Mariners are smart, they'd learn from the Orioles mistakes with Rutschman last year and keep Raleigh on the IL until he's healthy, even if he wants to rush back and try to play through the injury.

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