TAMPA — Before Junior Caminero left the dugout for his first at-bat of the game Saturday night, he said, Rays manager Kevin Cash told him he was going to hit a ball in the air. More specifically, that he was going to hit a ball out of George M. Steinbrenner Field.
“He then asked me again, and I told him — I said, ‘Yeah, I’m going to do it,’” Caminero said through interpreter Eddie Rodriguez. “And he was like, ‘Are you sure?’ And I was like, ‘Yes.’”
With two runners on and one out in the first inning, Caminero launched a 2-1 slurve from Blue Jays starter José Berríos and watched it fly out to left-center field for a three-run homer. That was all the offense the Rays managed to produce, but it was all they needed in a 3-1 victory over the Jays thanks to a bounce-back start by Shane Baz and more tremendous defense.
As Caminero trotted out of the batter’s box, he pointed to Cash in the dugout with a big grin on his face. From the swing to his smile, this is what the Rays want to see from Caminero.
“It’s not me when I’m not having fun out there. If I’m not smiling, that’s not me,” Caminero said. “I need to be smiling so it can be contagious to the guys, and we’ll be able to do great things.”
They are, at least, doing better things recently.
By winning their fourth straight game on Saturday, the Rays secured their fourth series win in their last five sets, clinched their third straight series win at Steinbrenner Field and locked down their fifth straight series win over the Blue Jays. At 25-26, Tampa Bay pulled within a game of .500 for the first time since holding a 14-15 record entering play on April 30.
They’ve done it mostly with the familiar formula on display Saturday night: excellent run prevention and just enough offense.
Baz allowed just one run (on a Vladimir Guerrero Jr. solo shot in the sixth), four hits and three walks while striking out four over 5 2/3 innings — an encouraging step after the right-hander went 0-3 with a 9.61 ERA in his first four starts this month. He and the bullpen got plenty of help from some spectacular defense, including a pair of key double plays in the fifth and seventh innings and a diving catch by center fielder Kameron Misner in the eighth.
“We want to score more runs, but if we’re in tight ballgames, low-scoring games, I think we’re equipped to do some things to prevent runs,” Cash said. “And we’ve seen it the last two nights.”
The Rays have also seen a better version of Caminero the past two nights after he sat out Wednesday’s series finale against the Astros heading into Thursday’s off-day. Cash acknowledged he hoped the consecutive days off would give Caminero a chance to reset.
“Probably trying to do too much at the plate, expanding,” Cash said Friday afternoon. “I’d like to see him try to rein it in a little bit and get in the zone. There’s not a pitch that he cannot handle in the zone.”
Mired in a 19-for-100 funk (.190 average) between April 20 and Tuesday night, Caminero carried a .230/.259/.402 slash line with an MLB-high 14 double-play grounders into the series opener at Steinbrenner Field.
But he used the time off to work, and he had some help.
From Monday to Friday, Caminero said he visited with Jorge Mejía, a Dominican hitting coach he has worked with in the past. Mejía flew in from Mexico and found a batting cage in the area where they could watch video and train, focusing on the importance of Caminero keeping his hands higher in his stance.
“He was here, and I told him, ‘We need to get to work,’” Caminero said. “And that’s what we did.”
The results were noticeable Friday night, when Caminero laced a ground-rule double, walked and reached on an infield single. They were even more apparent in his first at-bat Saturday, when he bashed a hanging breaking ball from Berríos that came off his bat at 104.8 mph.
It was Caminero’s ninth home run of the season, tying Brandon Lowe for the team lead, and only Tampa Bay’s fourth three-run shot of the year.
It was all they got, as Berríos and Toronto’s bullpen retired 23 of Tampa Bay’s final 25 hitters, but it was what they needed.
That might be the case for Caminero, too.
“It’s gonna take time,” he said, “but I have to trust the process.”
