SOMEWHERE IN THE bustling metropolis of St. Louis, a mother and father watch in awe as their young son shows signs of … superpowers!

Here is Jeremiyah Love, age 4, scaling walls and swinging from the rooftops.

Here he is, an eighth grader, leaping tall buildings in a single bound.

Then a teenager in full command of his powers, torpedoing around enemies and through brick walls.

Yet, all around him, dark forces gather.

If his life were a comic book, like the project he has spent the past four years creating with his father, Jason, and a team of artists, this would be Jeremiyah’s origin story, one not all too far from reality for Notre Dame‘s star running back. He swung from moldings on the 10-foot ceilings above his living room as a toddler, developed into an all-sport star who could dunk a basketball in eighth grade and became one of the nation’s top recruits by his junior year on the football field at Christian Brothers College High School.

As the story goes, Love entered the opening game of the season against powerhouse East St. Louis still bothered by nagging injuries from the track season, and his coach, Scott Pingel, had no plans to let him play. But the starter and the backup went down, so in Love went, and on his first touch, he ran a counter to the right side and sprinted 80 yards to the end zone.

“He made everyone else on the field look stupid,” Pingel said. “He’s making big-time D-I recruits look silly. That’s when everything really took off for Jeremiyah.”

But no origin story is complete without conflict, and if Love’s legend was burnished on the football field, he hardly fit the image of the all-powerful superhero away from it. He was isolated and introverted. When he felt uncomfortable, he retreated into those superhero stories — comics, graphic novels and, especially, anime. The worlds of heroes and villains and adventure made sense in a way his real life often didn’t.

“People thought that I was weird,” Love said. “I didn’t really have friends. I didn’t like to talk to people. I liked to play by myself. I just preferred it this way.”

For a while, those urges to isolate himself seemed like the villain in Love’s story, the thing that set him apart, the battle he had to fight. What he has come to understand as his legend has grown at Notre Dame and as he has grappled with how to tell his story on the pages of his own comic, is that those things that made him different were actually the source of his strength.

“That’s the whole point of the comic, of the message we’re trying to put out,” Jason Love said. “Sometimes kids like Jeremiyah are labeled, but he reverses all those things — all the doubters and cynics. That’s his superpower.”

JEREMIYAH WAS 6 when he played his first football game in a county rec pee wee league. He took a handoff, cut and ran for 80 yards. He was a natural.

He ran track, too, and he was always the fastest kid on the squad.

It was basketball that Jeremiyah loved most, though, and on the court, he stunk.

“He lacked the coordination and rhythm,” Jason said.

So at 7 years old, determined to get better, he told his father he wanted to work with a trainer.

As a young boy, Jeremiyah was “a little daredevil,” Jason said. Jeremiyah was curious and intelligent, but in school, he was a bundle of energy, frustrating teachers as he struggled to follow lessons. Jason spent hours trying to force his son to sit still. They’d perch on chairs at the dining room table, and Jeremiyah would have to sit with his hands clasped without moving for 10 seconds. If he got agitated, they’d start again. It was a daily struggle.

“We wrestled with Jeremiyah being different for a long time,” Jason said. “It was a constant battle of redirection and refocusing and trying to see what works to make things more manageable for him.”

Jeremiyah has never been officially diagnosed, but Jason said he often displayed signs of ADHD or obsessive-compulsive disorders, and as Jeremiyah got older, the battles became more intense. If Jeremiyah misbehaved, Jason, an Army veteran, tried to discipline his son by putting him into “muscle failure positions,” like holding a pushup as long as possible, Jason said.

“He’s so bull-headed, he’d do it for 20, 25 minutes,” Jason said.

Eventually, Jeremiyah’s arms would quiver and sweat would drip from his forehead and, knowing his son wouldn’t submit, Jason would relent.

Then, something clicked for Jeremiyah’s parents. Their son didn’t see these acts as punishment. He saw them as a challenge, and Jeremiyah relished the challenge.

It was the same as his struggles with basketball. Jeremiyah could’ve stuck to football and track, but he embraced basketball because it was hard. He worked with a trainer, he got better and, by eighth grade, he was dunking.

Once Jason and Jeremiyah’s mother, L’Tyona, understood their son’s triggers and motivations, there was a blueprint for how to manage his energy. In a challenge, Jeremiyah found focus, and with focus, he found success.

“If you challenge his competitive nature, he turns into a different creature,” Jason said. “He wants to dominate.”

JASON REMEMBERS SITTING in his kitchen one afternoon and hearing a voice from another room speaking Japanese.

Who was in the house?

He rushed into the living room, and he found Jeremiyah, sitting alone in front of the television. He was watching anime — a Japanese animation style — and interacting with the characters on screen.

Jeremiyah was 10 years old, watching with subtitles, and he had picked up enough of the language to provide his own running dialogue.

“I just fell in love with it,” Jeremiyah said. “I stumbled upon it on Netflix when I was about 6. As a kid, I liked cartoons, and anime looks like cartoons but it’s not. I kept watching more and more, and I got addicted.”

Jason had always been a fan of traditional American comics — X-Men, Superman, Batman — and he’d watched popular Japanese series like “Dragon Ball Z,” so when his son showed interest, he saw it as a way to bond.

Jeremiyah grew up in the Walnut Park neighborhood of northwest St. Louis. It was “very dangerous,” as Jason put it, and Jeremiyah remembers a soundtrack of gunshots and police sirens in his youth.

The danger outside swallowed up its share of kids Jeremiyah knew back then, he said, but he spent most of his time playing in his backyard or suiting up for sports or perched in front of shows such as “Naruto” and “Xiaolin Chronicles.”

“It was his whole realm,” Jason said. “He was watching shows I didn’t know anything about, but it was a passion of his. And anything Jeremiyah is focused on, he’s all-in.”

Jeremiyah had been talkative and outgoing in his youth, but the older he got, the more he withdrew.

In anime and comics, however, Jeremiyah found a world where he could transform into someone else — or, perhaps, simply be the person he knew he was but wasn’t yet ready to show the real world.

“It was his chance to be in a different place, a different world, where he can release all of his powers,” Jason said.

Growing up, Jeremiyah said he hadn’t considered how much he struggled. It was “a challenge to push through,” he said, but he loved a challenge. Only now, as he has revisited his story in creating his comic, has it occurred to him how big those hurdles had been.

“As a kid, when you’d be ostracized or excluded — it doesn’t feel great,” Jeremiyah said. “But I’m thankful I was that way. I never got into the wrong things, never hung out with the wrong people. The way I was protected me from that. My parents did, too. I’m thankful for how I was raised and who I was as a person. It just goes to show, don’t be afraid to be yourself, because that’s the best thing you can be.”

THE FIRST IDEA for the comic involved Jeremiyah morphing into an animal. Something big, bombastic and strong, Jason said. They sketched out the whole book with artists’ mock-ups and a complete plot. Jason had invested thousands of dollars into the project.

Jeremiyah thumbed through it and delivered a verdict: He hated it.

“He killed the first project,” Jason said. “That broke my heart. We had to start all over. But he tells you when he likes or dislikes stuff, and there’s no misunderstanding. But it showed me he was dedicated to this process.”

It was Jason’s idea to make the comic. He had pitched it to Jeremiyah during his junior season, when he was skyrocketing up the recruiting rankings and blossoming into one of the most explosive backs in the country. Back then, neither had any idea how to make a comic, but Jason figured it was a good opportunity to tell his son’s story in a way Jeremiyah would connect with.

Nearly five years later, Jason and Jeremiyah are finally ready to deliver. “Jeremonstar” will be released publicly in late September.

“This is not a cash grab,” Jeremiyah said. “It’s something I want people to like and enjoy. I want to tap into this fan base, and I want to connect with different people who are kind of like me.”

That first idea, though, was too childish. Jeremiyah scoffs at anyone who chalks anime up as a kids show. It’s fantasy, yes, but it’s so much deeper, he said. And him turning into an animal? All wrong.

So the Loves went back to the drawing board — a massive project that included world-building, story arcs and character development.

“We’ve been through a lot,” Jeremiyah said. “It is not easy to come up with a compelling superhero story.”

But this wasn’t simply a superhero story. It was Jeremiyah’s story. It had to be perfect, and that’s where the Loves kept running into problems. They’d hire an artist, a writer or an agency, and after a few months of work, they’d realize the whole output was perfunctory. Most artists they talked to saw dollar signs because of Love’s football prowess, but Love needed the story to be personal.

In December 2024, they met Chris Walker, and finally, they felt a connection.

“Chris was Yoda for us,” Jason said.

Walker had spent a decade working with Marvel and DC Comics, had worked as a creative director at an agency and had even helped design the cover for a graphic novel by rapper Ghostface Killah. He now runs his own creative agency, Limited Edition, and he had recently found some success partnering with the Chicago Bulls and MLB Network on sports-related properties. He was hoping to grow that market when he reached out to Notre Dame’s NIL collective, which connected him with the Loves.

When Walker met Jeremiyah, he was sold instantly.

“He’s talkative, but you have to sit down with him for a while to get to that,” Walker said. “I’ve had friends like him, who don’t like to be the center of attention. I thought, here’s the No. 1 running back in the country, and the moment I met him, it was like being around family.”

Walker liked the pitch of an anime-styled comic. He worked with Buffalo Bills linebacker Larry Ogunjobi, who told him how anime helped him learn discipline, and he had read an interview with New Orleans Pelicans star Zion Williamson, who said 80% of the NBA were fans of anime. Clearly there was an untapped market.

The Loves also had a plan to grow their universe. Jeremiyah’s story would be the first volume in what they hoped could become a cultural touchpoint for athletes from all sports.

“Athletes aren’t telling their stories in a fun, interesting way that people are going to gravitate to,” Jeremiyah said. “We want to go far with this.”

Walker brought on industry veterans to help carry the project over the finish line, including an editor who worked with Marvel. The team worked with Jason, holding Zoom calls nearly daily to discuss the project’s next steps, and developed a timeline and marketing strategy for release.

At Notre Dame’s 2025 spring game, the group handed out bracelets with a QR code directing fans to a webpage promoting the comic. In the months since, Jeremiyah said he’s continually hearing from fans — through DMs and even kids at the barbershop — who want to know when it will be ready.

“People are going to read this and understand you can be more than a football player,” said Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman. “That’s a misconception that, if you want to be a great football player, all you can do is think about that sport. But it’s not true, and Jeremiyah is a perfect reflection of that.”

The summer retreat before Jeremiyah’s junior year in high school was held in a timeworn lodge with about 80 rooms owned by the Catholic Church. Pingel held the retreat each year as an opportunity for his team to bond before the season. This would be Jeremiyah’s first stay as a full-time member of the varsity squad, but Pingel had known him for years. Pingel’s son was a year younger than Jeremiyah, so he had seen Jeremiyah grow from a string-bean running back into a phenom.

On the first night of the retreat, Pingel had noticed a buzz among the players and heard music echoing through the hall. He meandered toward a crowd gathered around a piano, certain he’d find a handful of teammates clowning, but as Pingel edged his way to the front, he saw Jeremiyah.

“He was just tickling the ivories,” Pingel said. “And everyone’s around him singing.”

There are a lot of lessons Jason and Jeremiyah hope the comic conveys about perseverance and commitment, but because this is Jeremiyah’s story, the idea that no one needs to conform to an identity other than their own is key.

“There are tons of kids like me, and they feel down about who they are,” Jeremiyah said. “I want to communicate that it’s OK. There’s no problem with that. Be you, and big things can happen.”

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JEREMIYAH STILL HAS his “quirks,” as Jason describes them. He insists on symmetry, like aligning his shoes just so, from left to right. He’s finicky about how his clothes fit. His belt buckle has to rest exactly right on the front of his pants. It’s habits that, years ago, might’ve frustrated Jason and L’Tyona. They see it differently now.

“We told him he’s the master of himself,” Jason said. “We told him he’s the greatest. And we just gave constant positive reinforcement.”

Pingel had always been struck by the contradiction of Jeremiyah Love, the football player, with the kid he’d gotten to know, reserved and occasionally distant, but curious and highly intelligent.

Jeremiyah is like a lot of comic-book heroes. By day, he shows one side of himself. Then he dons a uniform and becomes something else.

“The athlete needs to be an extrovert, going out there running over people and hurdling people,” Pingel said. “That’s kind of his alter ego.”

In the comic, Jeremiyah’s superpowers are derived from his real-life traits — speed and strength and willpower — but Pingel keeps thinking about that summer retreat when he truly understood Jeremiyah’s talent.

Football is where the alter ego can come out, where Jeremonstar is the effervescent star. But the real Jeremiyah is always in there, and, Pingel thinks, that’s the more interesting character.

Working together on the comic has been a cathartic experience, Jason said. For all the progress they have made with Jeremiyah over the years, Jason said he was never confident they’d have an overtly emotional bond. But like Pingel finding Jeremiyah at the piano, Jason keeps discovering new depths in his son.

“He’s come out of his shell now,” Jason said. “He’s more empathetic, more outgoing. I’ve learned a lot more and seen my son blossom into a young man.”

Jeremiyah burst into the national consciousness a year ago, accounting for more than 1,300 yards and 19 touchdowns, helping to lead Notre Dame to an appearance in the national championship game. By the time the Irish met Ohio State with a title on the line, however, Jeremiyah was nursing a knee injury. He managed just four carries for 3 yards in a 34-23 loss to the Buckeyes.

“I didn’t have all my superpowers,” he said. “I had the will, but sometimes, will isn’t enough.”

This offseason, Jeremiyah has worked to refine his superpowers. He better understands what it takes to stay healthy over the long haul. He’s trying to be less of a magician with the ball in his hands and focus more on his straight-line speed. But he insists he doesn’t have goals, just “things to work on,” nor is he haunted by last year’s disappointment.

“I just want to get to know myself better as a football player,” he said. “If that ends up us making it to the national championship again and winning it, great. If it doesn’t, that’s OK, too. I just want to make sure I’m the best me and the team is the best version of them.”

In high school, Pingel used to see his reluctant star endure autograph sessions, media appearances and countless conversations with recruiters, and he’d ask him: “Do you like being Jeremiyah Love?”

Pingel wanted to know if Jeremiyah was OK in the spotlight because it was never a role he relished, but it’s a question that might just as easily be asked in broader terms, too.

The answer, every time, was yes. Jeremiyah Love is completely happy being himself.

“He’s a warrior. He’s a fighter. He’s an introvert. He has his behavioral challenges, and he’s prevailed” Jason said. “Through hardship, you find yourself. And if you prevail, in my eyes, you’re a superhero.”

PASADENA, Calif. — By the time Nico Iamaleava stepped onto the field for his final drive of the night late in the fourth quarter of his much-anticipated debut as UCLA‘s quarterback, the Bruins were down 43-10 and the majority of the fans still left at the Rose Bowl were wearing red, chanting “Let’s go Utah!” as if the game were being held in Salt Lake City.

It was that kind of night for UCLA. The Bruins had come into the season with the promise of a new start, a new quarterback, a new offense and a reenergized culture in coach Deshaun Foster’s second season. Instead, they left their Week 1 matchup searching for answers, unable to avoid the reality of what had transpired.

“We got punched in the mouth,” Iamaleava said postgame.

After he transferred from Tennessee in the offseason in a surprising and controversial move, Iamaleava’s first snaps in blue and gold were not exactly what he or UCLA had in mind.

The 20-year-old quarterback struggled to engineer much success. Though he showed flashes of potential in a handful of pinpoint throws or scrambling runs, Iamaleava was pressured by Utah’s defense all night long and never found a rhythm. He finished with 11 completions on 22 pass attempts, 136 yards, 1 touchdown and 1 interception while adding a team-high 47 rushing yards.

“Nico is a competitor. He’s not going to quit. He kept playing hard,” Foster said. “We just gotta do a better job protecting him, keeping him upright.”

Iamaleava was sacked four times and pressured 10 times while the Bruins’ defense was far from helpful, allowing 493 total yards, a 14-of-16 conversion rate on third downs and four touchdown drives of nine plays or more. The Long Beach native, however, did not deflect the blame.

“I didn’t execute at a high level,” Iamaleava said. “I gotta be better. We all gotta be better.”

Earlier in the week, Iamaleava had said that up to 30 family members would be in attendance Saturday. While there may have been excitement about Iamaleava sparking a UCLA program in need of some buzz before the game began, it was quickly stifled by a Utah team that looked every bit the part of a Big 12 contender.

“We take this as a learning experience,” Iamaleava said. “We’re going to face many more tough opponents, and we gotta be ready.”

Foster said that even though little went right on the field Saturday, he was encouraged by the players’ attitude in the postgame locker room and their resolve to use the loss as a rock bottom they could rebound from. So did Iamaleava, who attempted to put his and UCLA’s sobering opener in perspective.

“Everything we want is still ahead of us. It’s Week 1,” he said. “Only way is up from here.”

Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh blasted his 48th and 49th home runs on Sunday in back-to-back at-bats in the first two innings against the Athletics, breaking Salvador Perez‘s record for most home runs in a season by a catcher. The next night, he became the second switch-hitter with 50 home runs in a season, joining Mickey Mantle in the exclusive club.

While Raleigh’s season hasn’t exactly come out of nowhere — he reached 30 home runs the previous two years — the fact that we’re not even in September yet certainly makes his power exploits even more impressive.

In honor of his record-breaking season, let’s dig into some of the numbers around his 2025 campaign. And with Raleigh now at 50 home runs, we’ll also break down where his season ranks among the most surprising 50-homer seasons in MLB history.

Cal Raleigh stands alone!

Big Dumper is the first catcher in @MLB history to reach 49 home runs in a single season. #TridentsUp pic.twitter.com/jVllJypOGr

— Seattle Mariners (@Mariners) August 24, 2025

So, is this the greatest power-hitting season ever from a catcher?

If you want to get technical about it, this is open for discussion. Like Perez with the Kansas City Royals in 2021, Raleigh has benefited from some DH time, with nine of his home runs coming as a DH. Perez’s figures were even more extreme, with 15 of his 48 home runs coming as a DH.

The record for home runs while only playing catcher belongs to Javy Lopez, who hit 42 for the Atlanta Braves in 2003 in just 117 games (he hit one more as a pinch-hitter). That was an impressive season for Lopez, who hit .328/.378/.687 with a 1.065 OPS. He fell seven plate appearances short of the 502 needed for official qualification, otherwise his OPS would rank as the second-highest ever for a catcher (behind Mike Piazza’s 1.070 in 1997) and his .687 slugging as the highest ever (Piazza slugged .638 in ’97). (And we would be remiss not to mention Josh Gibson’s hitting heroics in the Negro Leagues, as he topped both those figures multiple times.)

Raleigh leads the majors in home runs, which would put him alongside Johnny Bench as the only catcher to lead the majors if he maintains his lead over Kyle Schwarber and Shohei Ohtani. Bench, who topped the majors with 45 home runs in 1970 and 40 in 1972, played 158 games in 1970 and 147 in 1972, occasionally playing other positions when he wasn’t catching in lieu of the option to DH.

Could any other catcher in history have hit this many?

Lopez would have been the obvious candidate. Raleigh will soar past 600 plate appearances; Lopez’s home run rate prorated to 625 plate appearances gets him to 54 home runs. Piazza hit 40 home runs in 1997, but did bat 633 times while playing in 152 games, so you can’t really fudge more than a few extra home runs, even if he had more DH opportunities. Roy Campanella hit 41 for Brooklyn in 1953, batting 590 times while playing 144 games (although starting just 130). Give him the 162-game schedule and some DH starts and maybe he gets close to 50. Todd Hundley is the only other catcher with a 40-homer season, hitting 41 for the 1996 New York Mets in 624 plate appearances.

While Raleigh has slowed down since the All-Star break, especially in the batting average department, his season is also particularly impressive because he’s doing this in a very pitcher-friendly home park. He’s hitting .223/.317/.572 with 24 home runs at home and .269/.385/.614 with 25 home runs on the road. His home run rate is similar, but no doubt he has lost a few home runs to the marine layer in Seattle. To hit 50 home runs in a tough home run park as a catcher playing almost every game is a stunning accomplishment.

Are there any other records Raleigh can break?

Glad you asked. It feels like the record for home runs by a switch-hitter isn’t getting enough publicity. Mickey Mantle — now that’s a big name — holds the mark with 54 in 1961. Indeed, he is the only other switch-hitter with a 50-homer season, also hitting 52 in 1956. Raleigh is now third on the all-time list, having soared past Lance Berkman and Chipper Jones, who had 45 in their best seasons. He’s projected to surpass that 54 mark, so this could be the next record to fall.

Then there’s the Mariners team record: Ken Griffey Jr. had back-to-back 56-homer seasons in 1997 and ’98. With 31 games left on the Mariners’ schedule, Raleigh has certainly put that total in play as well.

What were the most surprising 50-homer seasons?

Once he hits No. 50, Raleigh will have the 51st season in MLB history with 50 home runs — by 33 different players.

Which of those were most surprising? Obviously, there were a lot of goofy home run totals from the steroid eras, and a couple of those seasons crack our top seven list:

7. Luis Gonzalez, Arizona Diamondbacks, 2001 (57)

Gonzalez topped 30 home runs just one other time in his career (31 in 2000) but hit .325/.429/.688 with 57 home runs and 142 RBIs in the D-backs’ World Series-winning season. The offensive numbers were so extreme in the NL in 2001, however, that Gonzalez finished just third in home runs (behind Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa) and third in the MVP voting.

6. Roger Maris, New York Yankees, 1961 (61)

Maris’ historic season obviously can’t be considered a complete fluke considering he hit 39 home runs and won the AL MVP Award in 1960, but breaking Babe Ruth’s home run record of 60 set in 1927 is one of the great achievements in MLB history. That was the year that MLB expanded, and Maris’ teammate Mickey Mantle also hit 54 home runs, while three other American Leaguers hit at least 45.

5. George Foster, Cincinnati Reds, 1977 (52)

Foster had hit 29 home runs in 1976 and would follow up his 1977 MVP season with 40 home runs in 1978, but he hit 30 home runs just one other time (30 in 1979). His ’77 season also stands out because it was the only 50-homer season between Willie Mays in 1965 and Cecil Fielder in 1990. Foster did benefit from a new, livelier ball, after MLB switched its manufacturer from Spalding to Rawlings. The NL batting average increased from .255 to .262 in 1977 and home runs per game increased 47%, from .057 to 0.84.

4. Aaron Judge, New York Yankees, 2017 (52)

3. Pete Alonso, New York Mets, 2019 (53)

These seasons don’t look so surprising in retrospect, but both were shocking at the time since they occurred in their rookie seasons, with Judge setting a record in 2017 and then Alonso breaking it just two years later. Both were regarded as good prospects — but not great ones. Judge was No. 44 on ESPN’s preseason Top 100 list in 2017 while Alonso was No. 90 in 2019. Judge had hit just 19 home runs in the minors in 2016 (in 93 games), although his raw power was obvious; Alonso had hit 36 in the minors, so at least looked like your more prototypical hitting prospect.

Alonso’s year, in particular, is fascinating because he wasn’t even guaranteed a roster spot entering the season — the Mets had publicly mentioned his defense as a reason he hadn’t been called up in 2018. They also had a crowded field contending for first base in spring training: former top prospect Dominic Smith, Todd Frazier and J.D. Davis (both couldn’t play third base), as well as Jed Lowrie, who the Mets had signed as a free agent but couldn’t play at second base because they had traded for Robinson Cano. Lowrie hurt his left knee in spring training and Frazier was also injured at the start of the season while Alonso had a strong spring, earning the starting job over Smith.

2. Jose Bautista, Toronto Blue Jays, 2010 (54)

Bautista was a 29-year-old journeyman coming off a 13-homer season, so he stunned everyone with this 54-homer season. He had overhauled his swing and started not only hitting the ball in the air more but pulling it much more often (his pull rate improved from 34% to 49%). He would prove it wasn’t a fluke, hitting 43 home runs in 2011 and 40 in 2015.

1. Brady Anderson, Baltimore Orioles, 1996 (50)

Anderson’s season still stands out as one of the fluke home run seasons of all time — his second-highest total was 24 home runs in 1999. Considering he was 32 years old at the time and coming off a 16-homer season, conspiracy theorists attribute his power spike to performance-enhancing drugs, which Anderson has consistently denied he used. Like Bautista, he pulled the ball more than ever that year while also hitting more fly balls. He played through a broken rib the following season and then he played through neck and back issues in 1998, both of which might have affected his power output. But that 50-homer season will live forever.

So where does Raleigh rank?

Probably along the lines of Gonzalez and Foster — a good power hitter having a career season, except Raleigh gets a little extra surprise credit for doing it as a catcher. Of course, we don’t know what he’ll do in the future, although you do wonder if he can keep playing this many games season after season. He has missed just three games all season, including just one since the All-Star break, but with the Mariners battling for both the division title and a wild-card spot, it’s going to be exceedingly difficult for manager Dan Wilson to rest Raleigh. The strikeouts have really piled up in August, including one five-strikeout game and three three-strikeout games, so it feels like he could use a day off or two. For now, the Mariners will hope he can keep grinding and keep hitting home runs.