Now 37, Stenhouse thinks about his dominance in the Xfinity Series driving for Jack Roush, about how the eight race wins he earned in two seasons (2011-2012) perhaps could have been more. He thinks about the drivers he went toe-to-toe with weekly, rivals who enjoyed lengthy Cup Series careers, claiming two consecutive Xfinity championships.
His short yet brilliant Xfinity Series career is quite a juxtaposition compared to his Cup Series tenure. Although Stenhouse won Rookie of the Year honors in 2013, he never felt his team could achieve the speed it was capable of. During the seven seasons he spent at Roush, he won only two races in the Cup Series.
Those results fell far short of expectations. He was projected to be a cornerstone in Roush’s long-term future.
In 2020, Stenhouse moved to Hyak Motorsports. It is a small, single-car operation, vastly different to the multi-car, once-championship-winning juggernaut he left behind at Roush.
“I think the expectations are probably less [now] than when I came into the Cup Series,” Stenhouse told ESPN. “There’s a little bit dynamic there of what we look like and look for in success.”
The most significant success for Stenhouse and Hyak came two years ago. First he pulled off an unexpected victory in the 2023 Daytona 500 to earn a spot in the postseason, then he averaged top-15 finishes late in the season. The latter makes Stenhouse almost prouder than the Daytona win.
“I felt week in and week out, we had speed and were executing,” he said. “With what we’ve been able to do with a small team, I think we can get back there. I think that turned a lot of heads of what we were able to do, and they know the resources a single-car team like us has compared to some of the bigger four-car teams, and I think our team does a great job with that. I’m looking forward to getting back there.”
Daytona sticks with a team far longer than the seven days between typical race wins. Not every driver and team have a Daytona 500 win. Some of the sport’s biggest names went their entire career without winning the biggest race. Stenhouse and Hyak will always be remembered as Daytona 500 winners, even by fans who only know NASCAR because of its Super Bowl event.
“We cherish that,” Stenhouse said. “We’re very proud to have accomplished that.”
Last year, Stenhouse and Hyak Motorsports went to victory lane in the fall race at Talladega Superspeedway. It was the team’s third ever Cup Series win, naturally making Stenhouse the first driver in their history to win races in back-to-back seasons.
“Being so far removed from those [Xfinity Series] wins and championships, it’s nice to put two seasons together of wins,” Stenhouse said. “We’re looking to carry that on to three years and try to rebuild the Cup career and maybe what people have thought about my career.”
Stenhouse seems at peace with how it’s unfolded — aside from his natural desire to add more to his resume.
Being at Hyak works for Stenhouse for many reasons, chief among them is the respect and belief between team and driver, and Stenhouse has familiar faces within the organization. Mike Kelley, Stenhouse’s crew chief, was also his crew chief at Roush. Ernie Cope, one of the team’s co-owners, worked with Stenhouse and Kelley’s rivals in years past, making both sides well aware of the other’s talent.
And with time and experience has come leadership. Stenhouse is a 12-year veteran of the Cup Series and has already spent five years with Hyak.
“I’ve settled in because I’ve got good people behind me and around me that really believe in my ability behind the wheel and my feedback,” Stenhouse said. “I think I’ve settled in because it’s a tight-knit family and it’s small, it’s fun to upset and win some of these races and go run top 10, things that people probably don’t have on their bingo [card] of us doing, and it’s nice for us to go out there and do that.
“I tell our team this all the time: I’m not there to prove people wrong. I want to prove the people we have in our shop right because we all believe that we can do it.”
A new season starts with a revamped team. Hyak Motorsports was rebranded in the winter from JTG Daugherty Racing, and internally there were promotions and shuffling. Stenhouse said there were additions on the engineering side that he hopes will help with different philosophies and ways of doing things. The goal is to be more on the front side of assessing ideas that do and don’t work before going to the racetrack on the wrong path.
As that happens, and Stenhouse continues to rebuild his career, maybe one day he’ll be reflecting on more recent accomplishments than those of days gone by.
In what has become a regular occurrence during Cal Raleigh‘s incredible 2025 season, the Seattle Mariners catcher added two more home runs to his historic total Tuesday — and passed another MLB legend in the process.
Raleigh has already surpassed the record for home runs by a catcher and by a switch-hitter and joined the prestigious 50-homer club, and who could forget his Home Run Derby triumph earlier this summer?
What record could Raleigh set next, how many home runs will he finish with and just how impressive is his season? We’ve got it all covered.
Raleigh is now at 56 home runs and on pace for 60 with 11 games left.
The American League record is 62, set by Aaron Judge in 2022, and there have been only nine 60-home run seasons in MLB history.
Who Raleigh passed with his latest home run
With his 55th and 56th home runs Tuesday, Raleigh passed Mickey Mantle (yes, you read that right: The Mick himself) for the most in a season by a switch-hitter.
Raleigh and Mantle (who reached the mark twice) are the only switch-hitters in MLB history with 50 long balls in a single season — well ahead of Lance Berkman and Chipper Jones, who each hit 45 in their most prolific home run season.
Who Raleigh can catch with his next home run
The next milestone up for Raleigh is passing Ken Griffey Jr.’s Mariners franchise record of 56, which Raleigh tied with his two-homer effort Tuesday. That’s a number Griffey reached twice — in the 1997 and 1998 seasons.
Raleigh has already joined Griffey as the only Mariners with 50 home runs (or even 45) in a season. Raleigh is also the first Seattle slugger with 40 homers in a season since Nelson Cruz in 2016.
Raleigh’s 5 most impressive feats of 2025
Most home runs in a season by a switch-hitter
With his 55th home run, Raleigh knocked Mickey Mantle, who hit 54 in 1961, from the top spot. Breaking Salvador Perez‘s record of 48 home runs by a primary catcher understandably got a lot of attention, but beating Mantle’s mark is arguably more impressive given how long the record stood and the Hall of Famer’s stature.
One of the best months ever for a catcher
In May, Raleigh hit .304/.430/.739 with 12 home runs and 26 RBIs. Only four catchers have hit more home runs in a calendar month and only eight with at least 100 plate appearances produced a higher slugging percentage. Raleigh was almost as good in June, hitting .300/.398/.690 with 11 home runs and 27 RBIs, giving him two-month totals of .302/.414/.714 with 23 home runs and 53 RBIs. In one blazing 24-game stretch from May 12 to June 7, Raleigh hit .319 with 14 home runs.
Reaching 100 runs and 100 RBIs
Raleigh is sitting on 101 runs scored while leading the American League with 115 RBIs. Only eight other primary catchers have reached 100 in both categories in the same season — Mike Piazza did it twice, in 1997 and 1999, and he and Ivan Rodriguez were the last catchers to do it in ’99. Of the other catchers, seven are in the Hall of Fame (Piazza, Rodriguez, Mickey Cochrane, Yogi Berra, Roy Campanella, Johnny Bench and Carlton Fisk). The lone exception is Darrell Porter, who reached the milestone with the Royals in 1979.
Tying Ken Griffey Jr.’s club record for home runs
Griffey hit 56 home runs for the Mariners in 1997 and 1998, leading the AL both seasons and winning the MVP Award in 1997 (he and Ichiro Suzuki in 2001 are Seattle’s two MVP winners). Griffey had the advantage of playing in the cozy confines of the Kingdome in those years, although his home/road splits were fairly even. Raleigh, however, has had to play in a tough park to hit in, with 30 of his 56 home runs coming on the road, where his OPS is about 100 points higher. That marks only the 19th time a player has reached 30 road homers (by contrast, 30 homers at home has been accomplished 37 times).
An outside shot at most total bases by a catcher
With 317 total bases, Raleigh’s 2025 campaign is already one of only 20 catcher seasons with 300 total bases (yes, time at DH has helped him here). The record is 355, shared by Piazza in 1997 and Bench in 1970 (both played 150-plus games in those seasons). Raleigh would need a strong finish to get there but could at least move into third place ahead of Perez’s 337 total bases in 2021. Not counted in Raleigh’s total bases: his 14 stolen bases!
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Cal Raleigh broke Mickey Mantle’s record for homers by a switch-hitter and tied the Mariners record set by Ken Griffey Jr. when the Seattle star hit his 55th and 56th of the season in consecutive at-bats in a 12-5 win over the Royals on Tuesday night.
Raleigh doubled in his first at-bat on a hot, humid night in Kansas City. He came up again in the third inning and, batting left-handed against Michael Wacha, fouled off a changeup and took a sinker for a ball before Raleigh sent a hanging curveball 419 feet over the right-field fence for his 55th home run of the season.
That broke the switch-hitter mark set by the Yankees star in 1961, which Raleigh had tied against the Angels on Sunday.
BIG DUMPER TWO HOME RUN NIGHT!
Cal Raleigh ties Ken Griffey Jr. for the most home runs in a single season in franchise history 😳
The All-Star catcher was back up in the fourth inning Tuesday night. This time, batting right-handed against left-hander Daniel Lynch IV, Raleigh sent the first pitch he saw 425 feet to straightaway center for his 56th homer.
Griffey set the Mariners record when he hit 56 homers during the 1997 season and matched the mark the following year.
After both home runs, Raleigh got a standing ovation from a small group of Mariners fans behind the visiting dugout at Kauffman Stadium. Many Royals fans, who had turned out to watch a club fading from playoff contention, also applauded the home runs. It was Raleigh’s 20th career multihomer game and his 10th this season, the most in a single season by a catcher in MLB history.
There have only been nine 60-homer seasons in the majors. Aaron Judge had the last when he hit 62 for the Yankees in 2022, an American League record. Raleigh would need to hit six more home runs over the next 11 games to tie Judge’s record.
The Associated Press and ESPN Research contributed to this report.
MINNEAPOLIS — Anthony Volpe returned to the New York Yankees‘ starting lineup on Tuesday, making his first start since getting a cortisone shot in his left shoulder.
Volpe entered the game against Minnesota hitting .206 with 19 homers in 142 games this season, playing through a small tear in his labrum for more than four months. He had a cortisone shot last week, his second this season, and returned to action as a defensive replacement in the eighth inning of New York’s 7-0 loss Monday. He did not have a plate appearance and was in Tuesday’s lineup at shortstop and batting eighth.
“I feel like he’s in a good place physically,” New York manager Aaron Boone said. “With that being said, that’s been the case most of the year. So, he’s just got to focus on what he does up at the plate and put himself in position to make good swing decisions, and hopefully click for him right away.”
Volpe aggravated the injury on Sept. 7 when he made a diving stop in a game against AL East-leading Toronto. He originally injured the shoulder in May and had a cortisone shot during the All-Star break.
