THE CHEAP SEATS with STEVE CAMERON: Coming off a win-filled week, Mariners still want their Dumper back

Now we know what was wrong.

The Mariners’ struggles — crappy all-around play until last week — came down to one issue.

Cal Raleigh received so much praise, love and general ho-hah that he forgot how to play baseball.

The Big Dumper’s game took an off-season dive into, ah, a big dumper.

That season-opening slump dragged the entire franchise into a mud puddle the size of an adult hippo.

OK, OK.

You must know I’m kidding.

The Mariners’ all-world catcher, coming off the best year that anyone has EVER played at that position, suddenly couldn’t hit.

He couldn’t throw.

He couldn’t brush his hair.

The entire Northwest fell into a raging panic, and for good reason.

This was serious stuff.

If Cal Raleigh can’t hit a baseball past the pitcher’s mound, Seattle would need to do some updating on those World Series plans.

Look, plenty of players get off to slow starts.

We’re talking about some damn GOOD players, too.

Consider: Julio Rodriguez has swung mostly at thin air during the first six weeks of each season in MLB.

But Julio in a slump looked like Ty Cobb compared to whoever was imitating Cal Raleigh this spring.

IT’S BEEN an unusual week, to say the least.

Fans, players and probably even Mariners staff likely have been thinking that the club needs Raleigh back to make any progress in the AL West.

Seattle was four games under .500 when Cal went to Arizona to heal his painful right oblique muscle.

Once the Dumper was gone, the M’s promptly won six straight (through Sunday night) to take the division lead with a 31-29 record.

Do NOT take that to mean Raleigh isn’t missed, and that everyone wants him back.

Of course, Cal needs to return to action healthy — as he learned in the stretch when he was playing in pain. The big man was lugging a .161 average before finally conceding that he needed to get well.

“My right side did hurt,” he said. “I was hoping it would ease up, but it didn’t.”

In fact, Cal was suffering through an 0-for-36 nightmare before it was decided he needed to get well.

It was decided he should go to Arizona to work with club doctors.

THE M’s clearly have a lineup that’s good enough to make a pennant run.

However, they’re not nearly as potent without Raleigh and infielder Brendan Donovan (also out injured), who was leading the team with a .300 average.

“That doesn’t mean we’re going to rush these guys back,” said GM Justin Hollander. “The goal is to get them healthy, and have other guys pick up the slack in the meantime.”

Raleigh said getting back to Seattle (last Friday) gave him a boost.

“It’s still going to take time,” he said, “but it’s good to be back here and map out a timeline for rehab, and eventually get in a game.”

Meanwhile, the Mariners aren’t kidding themselves about talent on the injury list.

They’d be happy to have a .161-hitting catcher back in the lineup.

As soon as possible.

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Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press three times each week, normally Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday unless, you know, stuff happens.

Steve suggests you take his opinions in the spirit of a Jimmy Buffett song: “Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On."