Minnesota Twins at Tampa Bay Rays

Junior Caminero lifted and lowered his left leg, turned his body and unleashed the kind of swing he’s understandably become known for. Quick, powerful, ferocious. He kept his left arm extended and watched the ball fly out toward the netting hundreds of feet away, bound for a landing spot few can even hope to reach. “I just hit the ball as hard as I could, gave it everything I had,” Caminero said through interpreter Kevin Vera. Surely by now you’ve watched the viral video of the ball he golfed into orbit on a rare Wednesday night off at Topgolf, right? Well, wait until you see what he did to a pair of baseballs in the Rays’ 6-2 win over the Twins on Friday night at Tropicana Field. “Those weren't cheap ones that Caminero hit,” Twins manager Derek Shelton said. “This kid is going to be one of the best young hitters in the game for a long time. Tonight, he showed why.” Caminero and Jonathan Aranda each clubbed a pair of home runs against former teammate Taj Bradley, four majestic blasts totaling a projected 1,701 feet. It was Caminero’s fifth career multihomer game, the first of Aranda’s career and a remarkably rare occurrence for the Rays. It was the ninth time in franchise history the Rays had multiple players record multihomer performances in the same game and the first since Mike Zunino and Nelson Cruz did so in Boston on Sept. 7, 2021. It was only their second such performance at Tropicana Field, as Ryan Hanigan and Wil Myers each went deep twice against the Yankees on April 19, 2014. “They’re both All-Stars for a reason, right?” said starter Drew Rasmussen, who held the Twins to just one run and struck out six over six innings in his first start with his newborn daughter, Miller Drew, in attendance. “They’re both really good players.”