Junior

Caminero

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.

Caminero tripled in the lone run of the game for the Rays with his first three-bagger of the year. The double was the 18th of 2026, and his slugging percentage improves to .550 in the process. Caminero has now driven in 64 runs in 2026, and has quickly — but not necessarily surprisingly — established himself as one of the best power-hitting hitters in baseball.

After suffering an injury scare when he was hit by a pitch on the left hand during the All-Star Game earlier this week, Caminero was back in the Rays lineup in his return from the break, and wasted little time showing everyone there was nothing to be worried about. The righty deposited a pitch from Eduardo Rivera 407 feet onto the Green Monster to tie the game at 3-3, giving him his 29th homer of the season. Caminero tallied a hit in both games of Friday’s double header and appears to be good to go after Tuesday’s scare.

The Rays as a whole were baffled by Jake Bennett, who held them to just Caminero’s single in six innings. But Caminero looked pretty good despite getting hit in the hand at the All-Star game and appears to be no worse for the wear.