Junior Caminero goes deep in win vs. Royals, becomes 1st Ray with 8 HRs in 7 games

Marc Topkin, Tampa Bay Times on Jun 30, 2026

Published in Baseball

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Winning American League Player of the Week honors on Monday wasn’t enough for Junior Caminero.

On Tuesday, in a 10-4 victory over the Royals that was the Rays’ sixth straight win, he made history.

With a three-run homer in the third inning, Caminero extended his hot streak into uncommon territory.

He became the first player in the Rays’ 29-season history to hit eight home runs over a seven-game span. Going back to 2022, the only other big leaguer to do so is Philadelphia’s Kyle Schwarber, and that was this past May.

Caminero also became the fourth Ray to homer in five straight games, with a chance to tie Carlos Peña’s franchise record that has stood since 2010 on Wednesday. The two other Rays to go deep in five straight are Jose Canseco (May 1999) and Mike Zunino (August 2021).

Caminero’s performance comes on a day that started with him announcing he was looking to hit even more homers, as he became the first player to commit to the July 13 All-Star Game Home Run Derby, having finished second last year.

Tuesday was noteworthy for a few other reasons, as the Rays opened the second half of their schedule in impressive fashion, improving to 49-33.

Griffin Jax delivered another strong start, worked six innings for the first time since transitioning from reliever to starter in April and improved to 3-3 with a 2.65 ERA over 12 starts.

That he worked six innings, throwing 71 pitches, was impressive since he gave up a homer on his first pitch, to red-hot Royals catcher Carter Jensen, and another in the third to Bobby Witt Jr.

Ryan Vilade followed Caminero’s third-inning homer with one of his own, as the Rays broke the game open by scoring six runs.

By the end of the night, every player in the Rays lineup except Taylor Walls had at least one hit, all but Chandler Simpson scored a run, and six Rays drove in runs.