CHICAGO — Junior Caminero and Nick Fortes hadn’t exactly been having comparable seasons at the plate entering Saturday afternoon.
Caminero, at just 22 years old, had hit 42 home runs and posted an .832 OPS coming into the Rays’ matchup with the Cubs, on top of being named to the American League All-Star team for the first time. Meanwhile, Fortes had been acquired in a trade with Miami before the Trade Deadline, and he’d only recorded a .556 OPS in his first 26 games with Tampa Bay (.612 over the whole year).
Regardless, both played major roles in the Rays’ 5-4 comeback victory at Wrigley Field, giving their postseason hopes a slight boost in the process.
First was Caminero. Carlos Peña still holds the franchise’s single-season home run record with 46 long balls in 2007. Caminero certainly has a chance to break it with two weeks left in the season, and he boosted his own odds while leading off the eighth inning with his team down a run.
Caminero fouled off back-to-back sweepers from Chicago right-hander Porter Hodge, falling into an 0-2 count. Hodge went with a four-seamer next, but he left it over the heart of the plate and Caminero didn’t miss his mark, drilling it a Statcast-projected 423 feet for a game-tying homer to move within three of matching Peña.
“I’d be willing to bet there’s 30 teams in baseball that would like that guy in their lineup,” said Drew Rasmussen, who allowed three runs over five innings. “And I mean, it’s fun, especially with how young he is and how much energy and how funny he is to be around as a person, right? Like, it’s exciting to see what he does on the field, but it’s also just as much fun to kind of sit back and just watch how he’s handling all of it as well.”
The two teams got to the ninth inning still tied, 4-4. Then, it was Fortes’ turn to play hero.
He had entered the game in the top of the seventh as a pinch-hitter, doubling with one out but getting stranded at third. In the ninth, he led off against Cubs right-hander Brad Keller, who hadn’t allowed a run since July 12.
Fortes fell into a 1-2 count before getting a sweeper for pitch No. 4. Keller’s offering ended up just above the strike zone and Fortes took it for a ride, nearly matching Caminero with a 421-foot blast to put Tampa Bay ahead.
“He got ahold of every bit of that ball,” manager Kevin Cash said. “That ball went a long way. I know it was probably a friendly place to hit today, but happy for Forty coming off the bench to get a double and a big home run.”
A half-inning later, both combined to make arguably the biggest play of the day.
Pete Fairbanks walked both of Chicago’s first two hitters, with the second free pass featuring a stolen base allowed and then a wild pitch on ball four. Quickly, the Cubs had runners at the corners with nobody out and the tying run at third.
But Caminero got a ground ball at third base and fired the ball on the money to Fortes. The backstop had already broken toward Chicago shortstop Dansby Swanson, who’d run about halfway down the baseline on the grounder.
Fortes said “absolutely not” when asked if he thought he could beat Swanson in a regular race; but in that moment, he had all the speed he needed. Despite running so hard one of his shin guard straps broke, he got the tag on Swanson.
That helped Fairbanks settle in, and he punched out the next two Cubs batters to complete the victory.
“Junior made a great play, Forty broke his shin guards, I took a couple breaths and then started executing,” Fairbanks said.
“It’s A-plus stuff, plus a good defensive play,” Rasmussen said, “and sometimes, that’s how innings unfold.”
The win ensures Tampa Bay finishes Saturday no more than 7 1/2 games out of an AL Wild Card spot. While that feels like a steep climb with 14 games left to play, the comeback victory shows the Rays aren’t done fighting.
“I would say that we’re not choosing to look at things we can’t control,” Fairbanks said. “We’re just trying to go out there and do it like we did today: Get down early, muddy the game up a little bit, get some big hits. Continue to swing it, continue to take the at-bats that we know we can take, throw the innings that we know we can and let the chips fall where they do.”
