{"id":738810,"date":"2026-06-29T19:15:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T19:15:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/738810\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T19:15:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T19:15:22","slug":"junior-caminero-powers-tampa-bay-rays-back-into-first-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/738810\/","title":{"rendered":"Junior Caminero Powers Tampa Bay Rays Back Into First Place"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Arizona<\/p>\n

ST PETERSBURG, FLORIDA – Junior Caminero of the Tampa Bay Rays reacts after hitting a solo home run in the bottom of the fifth inning against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Tropicana Field on June 28, 2026 in St Petersburg, Florida. (Photo by Parker S. Freedman\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Getty Images<\/p>\n

Not even during the 2025 season in which he came within one of the team record for home runs in a single season and hit the second most homers by a player in his age-21-or-younger season, did Junior Caminero go on a roll like this. <\/p>\n

Frankly, the Tampa Bay third baseman likely does not want to see June come to an end, which it will Wednesday evening when the Rays open a three-game series in Kansas City. Certainly not when considering he has hit seven homers in his last six games, including the longest of his career in Sunday afternoon\u2019s 5-1 win over the visiting Diamondbacks when he launched a blast off Merrill Kelly that traveled a 463 feet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpecial player doing special things,\u201d manager Kevin Cash said following Sunday\u2019s game. <\/p>\n

Caminero brings a four-game homer streak to Kansas City that began last Thursday at home against the Royals with a performance that, while by no means lost in the shuffle, took a backseat to the Rays attempting to close out a combined no-hitter that fell short in the ninth. The 22-year-old had the first three-homer game<\/a> of his career \u2013 the seventh player and eighth instance in team history — and equaled his high with six RBI in a 13-2 win. He then homered in each of three games in a sweep of Arizona. <\/p>\n

\u201cI kind of think back to the time I hit three home runs in the minor leagues with Montgomery, and now I have done it in the big leagues,\u201d he said of a previous three-homer game at Double-A Montgomery in 2022. \u201cI have never forgotten that day with the Biscuits, and now to do it (with the Rays) is a day I will never forget.\u201d<\/p>\n

Caminero is in the midst of an unforgettable stretch. In addition to blasting seven pitches over the fence the past six games, he has driven in 15 runs while hitting .500 (11-for-22) to bring his June numbers to .323 with nine homers, 21 RBI, 13 walks and a 1.058 OPS. Through Sunday, Caminero was hitting .292, was third in the American League in OPS (.932), tied for third in home runs (22), tied for eighth in walks (47) and 10th in runs (52). His OPS in 43 games at Tropicana Field is 1.110.<\/p>\n

Caminero and the Rays reached the halfway point Sunday by playing their 81st game and went into a new week with a one-game lead over the Yankees. The native of the Dominican Republic is on pace for 44 homers. That would be one shy of his total from last season when he hit 45, which was one behind Carlos Pena\u2019s team mark set in 2007 and two removed from Eddie Mathews\u2019 1953 total for most in an age-21-or-younger season.<\/p>\n

Caminero had a stretch of 21 games bridging May and June in which he hit one homer. In the 20 games he did not go deep, he hit .297 and reached base safely 36 times. The difference of late, is the ball off his bat is traveling, and traveling higher farther. Credit is due to opening his stance and a more selective approach. <\/p>\n

\u201cI am trying to get a pitch that I can hit well,\u201d he said after his three-homer game. \u201cIf it goes over the fence, great. Right now, I am being selective with (the pitches I swing at). I have been working with my leg kick and have been working a lot with (batting coach Chad Mattola) and I have been getting good results.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST PETERSBURG, FLORIDA – Junior Caminero of the Tampa Bay Rays reacts after hitting a solo home run…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":738811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2377],"tags":[87570,5,35523,5723,4,297,2550,68,2551,2549],"class_list":["post-738810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa-bay-rays","tag-2026-mlb","tag-baseball","tag-home-run-leaders","tag-kevin-cash","tag-mlb","tag-rays","tag-tampa-bay","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-tampabay","tag-tampabayrays"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116835000355905944","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738810","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=738810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/738811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=738810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=738810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=738810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}