Last week, I commented on how you have to hope the Baltimore Orioles don't choose this week to get right after their dreadful start to the 2025 campaign. As it turns out, that's exactly what transpired.

The Orioles — currently the last place team in the AL East — marched into T-Mobile Park and swept away the Mariners in three games, despite the home team having leads in both of the latter two.

The Mariners' offense continued to struggle, scoring only six runs for the entire series. This time, however, the pitching wasn't quite there to back them up. The bullpen surrendered three runs on Tuesday, two more on Wednesday, and Bryan Woo gave up back-to-back homers in the sixth inning on Thursday, just moments after receiving a lead courtesy of a Cal Raleigh two-run homer.

The series against the Orioles continues a trend of the Mariners being unable to hold leads of late. Facing the Twins this last weekend, they coughed up a late lead in all three games — though still found a way to walk-off the final two games of that series. No such luck against the O's, who have now won five consecutive contests.

The Mariners' woes this series appear to source primarily from the convergence of multiple issues that have been looming for weeks. As mentioned in last week's newsletter, the offense has been regressing from their hot month of April for over a month now, with holes in the lineup (particularly at the bottom) beginning to stick out.

That's not to say the rest of the lineup hasn't had their fair share of problems, either. Since the beginning of May, only four Mariners hitters have a wRC+ above league average (Raleigh, 224; Crawford, 135; Rodríguez, 121; Tellez, 105). As a whole, the team has a 95 wRC+ in that timeframe — and that number falls to 80 in home games.

In addition to the inadequacies at the plate, the spotty health in the starting rotation has led to a thin bullpen being leaned on a little more than one might hope, and we are seeing the effects. Since the mid-point of May, the bullpen has put up a 4.15 FIP, which ranks 21st in the Majors.

Casey Legumina was briefly optioned to Triple-A last week, only to be recalled a few days later with Collin Snider being placed on the injured list after a shelling on Tuesday. Andrés Muñoz also finally gave up his first earned runs of the season last week, blowing two multiple save opportunities.

The starting rotation appears to be nearing full strength soon with Logan Gilbert making his second rehab start a couple of days ago, so there is some optimism that starters could soon be pitching further into games and relieve some of the pressure on the bullpen. We aren’t there yet, though, and every game could matter come September.

The Mariners, who finally relinquished control of first place in the AL West this week, are going to need to find answers quickly in order to avoid digging themselves a hole in the standings.

Fight me: Cal Raleigh is the most valuable player in baseball right now

Though the Mariners' offense has faltered in recent weeks, catcher Cal Raleigh has done just about every thing in his power to offset his team's shortcomings.

So far in the 2025 season, Big Dumper has been nearly impossible to pitch to, leading the Majors in homers (24) and putting up a 187 wRC+. In addition, Raleigh has already accumulated 4.0 fWAR in just 61 games — second in the bigs, only behind Aaron Judge (5.3). Cal is on pace for about 10.6 — which, according to FanGraphs, would be the best season by any catcher in baseball history, besting Buster Posey’s 2012 season with 9.8.

Not only has Raleigh been a metronome for this Mariners team over the first third of the season — he has also stepped it up in the moments that his team has needed him most. His 2.98 WPA (win probability added) this season leads the American League, and is second in baseball to only Shohei Ohtani.

There are two players above the rest in the American League to this point, in my view — Raleigh and Judge. Pardon my (obvious) bias here, but I think I'm taking Cal right now. While Judge is worth more in fWAR than Raleigh to this point, defensive statistics are still a work in progress, and I don't think it can be fully quantified how valuable Cal is to the 2025 Seattle Mariners.

What Raleigh is doing at the moment is, quite literally, unprecedented for a major league backstop. We’ve never seen a catcher do what he is doing. Besides, have you watched the Mariners over the last month? Cal is carrying this team on his back — and he's doing it as the bridge between the position players and pitchers.

I don't think a single player has been more important to his team so far this year than Cal has been for the Mariners. Combine all these factors, and you have a hell of an argument for MVP in the American League.

Know your opponent: Los Angeles Angels

I guess now is as good a moment as any to announce that Rolling Roof Rundown will be expanding to two, count 'em, TWO newsletters every week—one for each Mariners series. Therefore, we will only be talking about the next three upcoming games today.

Tonight, the Mariners will kick off a three-game set against the Los Angeles Angels in their first trip Anaheim this season. With none of the three widely-recognized contenders (Mariners, Astros and Rangers) having built a significant lead to this point, the Angels have managed to ride an eight-game May win streak to stay within striking distance in the AL West, despite low expectations headed into the year.

Just with the way the schedule shakes out, the Mariners manage to avoid the Angels' two best starters this year by fWAR, José Soriano and former Mariners pitcher Yusei Kikuchi. We'll see how much that matters, though, considering how the Mariners have struggled to get anything going against anyone lately.

A word of warning to the scarred M's fans — future Hall-of-Famer and notorious Mariners killer Mike Trout is healthy and in the Angels lineup right now, something that hasn't always been the case over the past couple of years. In fact, since being reinstated from the injured list on May 30, he is sporting a 246 wRC+ in six games.

If you would like a reminder of how Trout has dominated our hometown team over the last decade plus (maybe you're a masochist, I don't know), look no further than the montage below, courtesy of Andrew Vargha.

The Angels were a thorn in the Mariners' side down the stretch in 2024, with the M's going 2-5 in their seven games in Anaheim, despite the Angels being out of contention for most of the year. It isn't extreme to suggest that the Mariners' failure to rack up wins against an otherwise 'bad' divisional opponent was a large reason they didn't make the postseason last year.

In their first two games facing each other in 2025, the Mariners swept both games at T-Mobile Park at the end of April — though the vibes will be a lot different headed into the series this time around.

Hopefully, we are talking about this being a 'get-right' series for Mariners come the end of the weekend. After all, there’s no Calhoun (Kole or Willie) on the Angels roster this time.

This is Rolling Roof Rundown’s twice-weekly Mariners newsletter. You can follow James @rollingroofrundown.com on Bluesky and, if you haven’t already, subscribe to the newsletter for more news and commentary. Rolling Roof Rundown is now on Instagram and Threads as well.