{"id":164253,"date":"2025-07-09T22:09:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T22:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/164253\/"},"modified":"2025-07-09T22:09:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T22:09:10","slug":"rays-first-time-all-star-junior-caminero-competing-in-derby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/164253\/","title":{"rendered":"Rays First-Time All-Star Junior Caminero Competing in Derby"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/athlonsports.com\/mlb\/tampa-bay-rays\/rays-first-time-all-star-junior-caminero-competing-in-derby\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Rays First-Time All-Star Junior Caminero Competing in Derby;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Rays First-Time All-Star Junior Caminero Competing in Derby<\/a> originally appeared on <a href=\"https:\/\/athlonsports.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Athlon Sports;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Athlon Sports<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Just one day after being added to the American League All-Star roster, <a href=\"https:\/\/athlonsports.com\/mlb\/tampa-bay-rays\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Tampa Bay Rays;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Tampa Bay Rays<\/a> slugger Junior Caminero announced Wednesday that he will participate in the 2025 Home Run Derby. He joins a star-studded field that includes Byron Buxton, Oneil Cruz, Cal Raleigh, James Wood and Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Caminero was named to the AL squad on Tuesday as a replacement for Alex Bregman and will serve as a reserve infielder. It marks the 22-year-old\u2019s first career All-Star selection and possibly the first of many.<\/p>\n<p>A breakout star for Tampa Bay, Caminero leads the Rays with 21 home runs this season and holds a .252 batting average with a 118 OPS+, indicating he&#8217;s been an above-average hitter. He joins fellow infielders <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/article\/rays-brandon-lowe-jonathan-aranda-152704390.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:Brandon Lowe and Jonathan Aranda;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Brandon Lowe and Jonathan Aranda<\/a> as Rays representatives in this year\u2019s Midsummer Classic.<\/p>\n<p>The Rays, who sit at 49\u201343 and five games back in the AL East, remain in playoff contention despite a rough recent stretch. Caminero\u2019s rise is part of a broader youth movement fueling the club\u2019s resurgence in one of baseball\u2019s toughest divisions.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>This story was originally reported by <a href=\"https:\/\/athlonsports.com\/mlb\/tampa-bay-rays\/rays-first-time-all-star-junior-caminero-competing-in-derby\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Athlon Sports;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Athlon Sports<\/a> on Jul 9, 2025, where it first appeared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rays First-Time All-Star Junior Caminero Competing in Derby originally appeared on Athlon Sports. Just one day after being&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":164254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2377],"tags":[72,5,1751,2223,3297,565,307,4682,4,1330,297,921,2550,68,2551,2549,1966],"class_list":{"0":"post-164253","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-rays","8":"tag-alex-bregman","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-brandon-lowe","11":"tag-byron-buxton","12":"tag-cal-raleigh","13":"tag-james-wood","14":"tag-jonathan-aranda","15":"tag-junior-caminero","16":"tag-mlb","17":"tag-oneil-cruz","18":"tag-rays","19":"tag-ronald-acuna-jr","20":"tag-tampa-bay","21":"tag-tampa-bay-rays","22":"tag-tampabay","23":"tag-tampabayrays","24":"tag-the-rays"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114825564725451134","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}