For Highland grad Luke Raley, it's raining hits in Seattle

Katie Raley was sitting in a hot tub while enjoying her honeymoon in Saint Lucia in early January when her husband's cell phone rang. It was the Tampa Bay Rays calling to inform 29-year-old Luke Raley, who got married on Dec. 29, that he had been traded 2,529 miles across the country to the Seattle Mariners. "Katie didn't want to get out of the hot tub, but I pulled her out to tell her," Raley said earlier this week in a phone interview from Seattle. "She was as upset as I was. She had friends there in Tampa and really liked the other players' wives and girlfriends and was excited to go back." So was the 6-foot-4, 235-pound Raley, a 2013 Highland High graduate who was coming off a breakout season where he made 406 plate appearances and hit .249 with 19 home runs, 49 RBIs, a .490 slugging percentage and an .824 OPS. Those numbers probably would have been even better, but Raley's season ended on Sept. 16 when he suffered a neck injury after running into the Rays' Spanish-speaking interpreter while chasing a fly ball during batting practice. "I was shocked, to be honest," Raley said of the trade. "I really liked Tampa and didn't know how I would be here in Seattle, so there was a part of me that was bummed out. At the same time, it's always exciting going to a new team. "I've loved being here. I love Seattle, but it rains all the time. I mean, all the time." A 2023 Medina County Sports Hall of Fame inductee, Raley got off to an extremely rough start with the Mariners, going 1-for-23 in his first 10 spring training games. Seattle had asked the left-hand hitting Raley to make a few adjustments to his swing and he obliged, but when it was clear they weren't working the Mariners told him to go back to his original style. That also was an adjustment, and through April 26 Raley was playing sparingly and hitting just .174 (8-for-46) with no home runs and two RBIs in 18 games. That included just one at-bat -- he got a pinch-hit double -- against the Cleveland Guardians during a three-game series in Seattle from April 1-3. "It's not like flipping a switch," he said. "When you work on something for a month, it takes some time to get back to what you were doing." Since April 27, Raley has been on fire. Through Tuesday, he had hit .319 (30-for-94) with six home runs and 14 RBIs while playing in 31 games for the surprising Mariners, who entered Wednesday with a 35-27 record and led the reigning World Series champion Texas Rangers by 5½ games in the American League West Division. For the season, Raley entered Wednesday hitting .271 with six home runs, 16 RBIs, a .450 slugging percentage, .770 OPS and five stolen bases in five attempts. He had not made an error in 102 chances while playing primarily left field, where on May 28 in Houston he leaped high above the wall to rob Jeremy Pena of a home run and was included on SportsCenter's top 10 plays of the night. "I wasn't getting to play much at the beginning of the year," Raley said. "Whether that was because I was trying to go back to what I had been doing (at the plate), I don't know, but I just wasn't getting to play a lot. "It's really hard to be a pinch hitter and get four or five at-bats a week. That's a really tough role. Once I started getting more consistent playing time, things started to turn around." Now also getting some at-bats against left-handers, Raley's playing time increased when Walsh Jesuit product Dominic Canzone got hurt, but it has remained steady since Canzone's return. Canzone is playing right field, with All-Star Julio Rodriguez in center and Raley in left. More playing time has meant better power numbers, as Raley entered Wednesday having hit six home runs in his last 25 games, beginning with a prodigious blast in Houston on May 5. "It felt good," he said. "It was a good reminder that I still had it in there. It was a good one, too. It was launched into the second deck. It didn't scrape the wall and just get out." Raley and his wife are renting a house in Seattle and love the area, outside of the constant rain. Life is even better now that Raley is playing consistently and putting up great offensive numbers. "I was trying to keep the confidence up, but it was definitely worrisome," he said of his early struggles. "I'm here because of my power. It's a big part of my game, so to go through spring training and the early part of the year, I was definitely concerned, but things are going well right now." Contact Rick Noland at (330) 721-4046 or rnoland@medina-gazette.com. Follow him @RickNoland on X.