Even with the home run that wasn't, Junior Caminero and the Rays' offense finally break through in ALCS Game 4

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Those adjustments were on full display Saturday, as Caminero finally found the big swing he’d been looking for in Tampa Bay’s 7-3 victory to even the ALCS at two games apiece. After Daniel Espino walked Jonathan Aranda and Chandler Simpson to lead off the sixth inning, Caminero strolled to the plate in a tie game with a golden opportunity to push the Rays ahead. This was Caminero’s third encounter with Espino in the series, and the first two had not gone well. In Game 1, Caminero swung through three fastballs at 98.2, 99.4 and 98.6 mph. In Game 3, Espino cranked up the heat further and got the same result by pumping 100.6, 100.6 and 100.3 mph past Caminero, all at the top of the zone.

In Game 4, Espino once again came with the high heat, but this time, it was only 97.9 mph – and Caminero didn’t miss it. Third time was the charm: Caminero blistered the ball over a leaping José Ramírez and down the left-field line to drive in Aranda and make it 2-1 Tampa Bay. 

It wasn’t just the redemption against Espino that made Caminero’s sixth-inning double so satisfying. It was also how his first two at-bats of the game had unfolded. Caminero’s eagerness to break through was evident in his first trip to the plate. Moved down to fourth in the batting order after hitting third in the Rays’ first six games this October, Caminero came up to bat after Guardians second baseman Travis Bazzana made an error to allow Chandler Simpson to reach. But Caminero jumped at a first-pitch cutter from Cleveland opener Shawn Armstrong and grounded out weakly to second base. Statcast measured his swing at an elite 81.6 mph, but the ball left his bat at a harmless 73.7 mph to end the inning.

When Caminero led off the fourth, RBI singles from Chase DeLauter and Jonathan Aranda had the game knotted at 1. In his second at-bat, this time facing Cleveland left-hander Foster Griffin, Caminero’s unrivaled right-handed cut made a more familiar kind of contact — the kind the Rays had been waiting for all October.

After landing a sweeper for a called strike one, Griffin attacked with a 92-mph fastball above the zone, and Caminero pounced. This time, his swing speed checked in at only 79.7 mph — still elite — but the barrel met the ball flush, sending it sizzling toward straightaway center field at 110.7 mph with a 29-degree launch angle. Similar combinations of batted ball metrics have quite literally produced only home runs since Statcast began tracking in 2015. 

But on this especially chilly night in Cleveland — 46 degrees was the lowest recorded first-pitch temperature for a postseason game since Game 1 of the 2019 NLCS in St. Louis — it was not to be.

Guardians center fielder Petey Halpin bolted back toward the fence and began backpedaling once he reached the warning track. It briefly looked like he lost track of the ball, but at the last moment, Halpin recovered and made a falling catch just in front of the deepest part of the outfield wall.

As the sellout Progressive Field crowd of 33,355 went wild, the Rays and Caminero were positively stunned. Reliever Tyler Wells was in the bullpen deep beyond the right-center-field fence, so his view of Caminero’s batted ball’s landing spot was somewhat obscured. But when Caminero connected, its destination appeared certain.

“Whenever I saw everyone cheering, I was really confused,” Wells said afterward. “I was like, ‘What happened? Did this guy scale up half the wall? Did he pull a Spider-Man?’ But it didn’t even make it to the wall.”

“I've seen that a lot of times this year,” Simpson said later. “And most likely, it is going over the fence.”

Did Caminero think it was gone? “100 percent.”

But it was not. At a projected 410 feet, it was tied for the farthest batted ball hit for an out at Progressive Field in the Statcast Era.

“Found a glove that time,” Simpson said. “But he was able to come up big for us later in the game.”

That he was. Caminero — who finished the night 1-for-5 with two strikeouts — was ultimately overshadowed in the Game 4 box score by Aranda and Yandy Diaz, who combined for five hits and four RBI, including Diaz’s ninth-inning, two-run homer that put the game out of reach. But Caminero’s pair of particularly scorched batted balls can only portend good things as the Rays continue to push for a World Series berth.

“I have a lot of experience in this ballpark and know that it can be a little tricky on the cold nights,” Cash said of Caminero’s surprising non-homer. “Didn't look like there was a ton of wind, but that cool air can knock it down a little bit.

“But overall, just happy that Junior squared some balls up.”