Junior Caminero hits walk-off home run vs. A’s

We wouldn’t have expected anything less from Caminero, whose late-inning heroics gave the Rays a win and clinched them a postseason berth in the process. Stepping up to the plate with a runner on second and one out in the ninth inning, Caminero got a hold of a first-pitch fastball from Bryan Abreu and deposited it 434 feet into deep left-center to give the Rays the walk-off win. It was the 40th homer of the season for Caminero, which now gives him back-to-back seasons with 40-plus homers. Caminero now has three homers this month and is slashing .296/.394/.667 in his last seven games.

Caminero’s home run was his 39th of the season. He hit a solo shot off AJ Smith-Shawver in the first inning. Caminero has hit two home runs in his last three games. He’s hitting .282 with a .904 OPS and 93 RBI this year.

Caminero put the Rays on the board early, taking Jacob deGrom deep for a solo homer in the first inning. He later added a base hit in the eighth. The 23-year-old slugger is hitting .281/.365/.532 with 38 home runs, 87 runs scored, and 91 RBI across 620 plate appearances.

Caminero destroyed a fourth-inning solo shot off Robbie Ray, his 37th of the season. That ties Yordan Alvarez for the American League lead. There was a lot of offseason discussion about the Rays having played in a minor-league park when Caminero hit 45 homers a season ago. But he’s proving to be an annual 40-plus homer threat even at Tropicana Field. Kyle Schwarber and Shohei Ohtani are the only hitters with more home runs than Caminero over the past two seasons.

Caminero led off the sixth inning with a solo homer off Walker Buehler to tie the game. The home run ends a bit of a homer drought for Caminero, as he went 15 games without a home run going into Saturday. The 23-year-old slugger is slashing .280/.367/.533 with 36 homers, 83 runs scored, and 86 RBI across 588 plate appearances.

Not many players can hit a ball 114 mph and to see it twice in a game is pretty special, even if they only turned into a single and a groundout today. There have been four 114-mph balls in play this week, and Caminero is responsible for three of them; he also had a 116.9-mph single against the Jays on Tuesday. The other belongs to Coby Mayo, who had a 114.2-mph homer against the Rays on Monday.

Caminero put the Rays on the board with a two-run blast off Mason Barnett in the first inning. He followed with a walk and a run scored in the third. That’s back-to-back games with a home run in Sacramento for the 23-year-old slugger. He’s up to 35 on the season while slashing .277/.369/.554 with 74 runs scored and 76 RBI across 520 plate appearances.

Heading into the eighth inning, things didn’t look good for the Rays. Tampa Bay trailed 6-2, but finally Athletics starter Jacob Lopez was out of the game. After two singles, Caminero blasted a three-run home run to bring the Rays to within a run. With still no outs, the Rays went on to score five more runs in the inning, making it a 10-6 ballgame. Caminero is hitting .277 with a .917 OPS and 74 RBI.

All five of his balls in play tonight were hit at least 98 mph, with the homers checking in at 112 and 109 mph. Caminero is moving into some very rare territory now with 84 homers through his age-22 season. He moved past Al Kaline tonight and is now tied with Mickey Mantle for 15th place on that list. Next up are Jimmie Foxx at 86 and Johnny Bench and Ken Griffey Jr. at 87. He’s not going to approach Mel Ott’s record of 115, but he ought to finish up in the top 10.

Caminero hit his 30th homer of the season in the fourth inning off White Sox starter Erick Fedde. It was the first homer for Caminero in nearly two weeks, as the slugger has struggled to produce many extra-base hits over that span. That said, he concludes the month with a .245/.336/.529 slash line with seven homers and 14 RBI.