TAMPA — There was no need for a team meeting, manager Kevin Cash said, and no reason for a spirited speech. The Rays sputtered into the All-Star break, dropping 12 of their final 16 games and losing most of the ground they made up over the previous five weeks.
Nobody felt good about it. Nobody expected it to continue.
“I don’t think anything needed to be said. Our record was saying enough,” Cash said Friday afternoon. “We’ve got to turn it around and turn it around quickly.”
The Rays responded with a dramatic turnaround on Friday night at George M. Steinbrenner Field, dominating the Orioles in all facets as they cruised to an 11-1 win in their second-half opener.
Fresh off a second-place finish in Monday’s Home Run Derby, All-Star third baseman Junior Caminero ripped two homers to bring his season total to 25. Yandy Díaz launched his second career grand slam. Danny Jansen homered, and Chandler Simpson (three hits, two runs) extended the Majors’ longest active hitting streak to 18 games.
Right-hander Taj Bradley struck out six over six innings in his second scoreless start of the season, shutting down an Orioles lineup that has roughed him up in the past by attacking them with fastballs and cutters. And hard-throwing Joe Boyle, moving into a relief role for Tampa Bay’s beleaguered bullpen, breezed through two scoreless innings with two strikeouts.
“That’s a great way to start your weekend,” Bradley said, smiling. “Hits everywhere, run support everywhere. Just a great day to come back into the second half.”
Indeed, the Rays couldn’t have scripted a much better start to a critical two-week stretch leading up to the July 31 Trade Deadline, one that president of baseball operations Erik Neander acknowledged “will have some sort of influence on our decision-making as the month draws to a close.”
After the Rays’ skid into the break left them in fourth place in the American League East and out of a Wild Card spot, a lot is riding on this six-game homestand and a subsequent seven-game trip to Cincinnati and New York.
Optimistically, Neander said, they find themselves “in a position where we’re looking to at least improve somewhere on the roster, if not significantly so.” But if they play like they did during a 2-8 trip to finish the first half, he added, “that comes with all sorts of additional questions that I’d much rather not think about.”
So, what’s the best way to put that stretch behind them and quickly bounce back?
“A two-week amnesia pill?” Neander joked.
A couple more games like Friday night might work, too.
“We needed to feel good about ourselves, because we didn’t feel good about ourselves for 10 days,” Cash said. “I’m guessing most of these guys, because they care so much, probably thought about it a little bit for four days during the break.”
Caminero didn’t get much of a break. He reached the finals of the Derby and started the All-Star Game, a whirlwind so exhausting that he said he slept for 16 hours on Wednesday night.
He appeared to be reenergized on Friday night.
With two outs in the first inning, Caminero blasted an 0-1 curveball from Charlie Morton out to left-center field for a three-run homer. The 439-foot shot was the longest home run of his career, the second-longest by a Ray this season and the second-farthest one hit at Steinbrenner Field this year. Cash called it “one of the best balls I’ve seen him hit,” no minor praise given Caminero’s knack for crushing baseballs.
And he wasn’t done. In the sixth, Caminero knocked a solo homer out to right field. The 22-year-old became only the fourth player to record multiple homers in his first game after participating in the Home Run Derby, according to Stats Perform, joining a pretty talented trio: Juan Soto (2021), Albert Pujols (2009) and Ken Griffey Jr. (2000).
“I went there just to have fun. I had a smile the whole time,” Caminero said through interpreter Eddie Rodriguez. “And now, I’m concentrating on helping the team win. The All-Star Game and the Home Run Derby, that’s behind me. My focus here is just to win ballgames here and help the team win.”
Díaz, on the other hand, hadn’t swung a bat since Sunday afternoon in Boston. He estimated that he took five swings before Friday’s game, a warmup so limited that Cash jokingly asked hitting coach Chad Mottola if Díaz was even at the ballpark before first pitch.
So, naturally, he went 3-for-4 with a walk and the Rays’ third slam of the season, a sixth-inning shot off lefty Grant Wolfram. Díaz and Caminero each finished with four RBIs, marking the 14th time in franchise history that two players each drove in at least four runs in the same game.
“He’s pretty amazing,” Cash said.
