Caminero's First Postseason Homer Sent the Rays to the World Series

Junior Caminero hit 42 home runs in the regular season and none in the postseason, until the seventh inning of ALCS Game 6 on Monday night. His two-run drive off Cleveland closer Cade Smith struck the left-field foul pole at Tropicana Field, stretched Tampa Bay’s lead to 5-1, and set up a 7-3 win that sent the Rays to the World Series. The pitcher on the mound for the pennant itself was Freddy Peralta, whose own night carried the series MVP award. This page is about the swing that closed the door.

What made this swing different from his other 32 at-bats?

The pitcher and the pitch. Cade Smith is Cleveland’s All-Star closer, the arm the Guardians trust most, and per the Associated Press, Caminero became the first player ever to hit a home run on Smith’s splitter. The AP counted the wait precisely: 42 regular-season homers, then 33 postseason at-bats without one. A 23-year-old two-time All-Star had spent two rounds being pitched like the most dangerous hitter in the Tampa Bay order, because he is. The one mistake, a splitter that stayed up, left toward the pole and stayed fair by the width of it.

What happened on his trip around the bases?

A celebration built for the building. Caminero turned toward his dugout before he reached first base and pounded his chest with both arms. Rounding second, he cupped an ear to the crowd. Then he stopped short of home plate, pointed into the stands at Randy Arozarena, the former Rays outfielder whose crossed-arms pose defined Tampa Bay’s 2020 World Series run, and copied the pose in front of him before crossing the plate. After the game he took a microphone on the field and yelled to the sellout crowd of 40,230: “This is for you! Let’s go! I can’t hear you!” It happened on the 18th anniversary of the night the Rays won their first pennant in the same ballpark.

Have the Rays ever won a World Series?

No, and that question was the night’s second story. The Rays lost the 2008 World Series to Philadelphia in five games and the 2020 series to the Los Angeles Dodgers in six, per TSN. Milwaukee, their opponent from Friday, has never won one either, losing its only appearance in 1982. Per the AP, this is the first World Series matching two clubs still chasing a first title since 1980, when Philadelphia beat Kansas City. Somebody’s drought ends next week, and the full leaderboard sits in most World Series wins by a team. Cleveland’s wait, meanwhile, stretches to 78 years, the extreme case in the longest championship droughts in North American sports.

How did Tampa Bay get to a Game 6 clincher?

By refusing to lose after falling behind. The Rays dropped the series openers, trailed two games to one, then won three straight. The Game 6 plan itself was the week’s strangest managerial call: Stephen Vogt saved his ace for a Game 7 that never came and ran a bullpen game with the season on the line, while Tampa Bay’s Peralta outlasted the rotation-by-committee. The series had already produced a Game 4 flashpoint when Yandy Diaz refused an ABS challenge, and Diaz was in the middle of Game 6’s scoring too, adding a two-run homer in the eighth after Cleveland had forced in runs to make it 5-3.

What does Caminero’s October mean for the World Series?

It removes the one question hanging over Tampa Bay’s lineup. A team can win a pennant with its best power hitter quiet, and the Rays nearly did, taking the series on pitching and depth. What Milwaukee’s staff now has to plan for is different: a 23-year-old who has just remembered, on the biggest swing available to him, that the splitter he is likeliest to see in a late inning is a pitch he has already taken over a foul pole. Game 1 is Friday in Milwaukee. The pose, if it comes back, will be in a colder park and a louder argument.