Junior Caminero, Rays Pull Off Wild Walk-Off Win, Beat Rangers 4-3 For Sweep

TAMPA, Fla. — It's one thing to have a moment on your own bobblehead night, but it's another thing to have all of them. Junior Caminero more or less pulled that off Thursday night.

The Tampa Bay Rays third baseman — who's been on a major heater the past few weeks — has been the hero quite often lately, and all the stars aligned in the season finale with the Texas Rangers at Steinbrenner Field. Another sellout crowd showed up to grab a Caminero bobblehead doll, and then he took care of the rest in a most unlikely 4-3 win.

Caminero hit a second-inning home run, his 15th of the year and sixth in the past week, but that was all the Rays could muster for eight innings against Texas start Jack Leiter and the Rangers bullpen. Texas had three solo home runs of their own, two off starter Ryan Pepiot and one in the seventh inning by Marcus Semien off Kevin Kelly in the seventh inning to take a 3-1 lead.

And then the Rays pulled it out with a crazy three-run rally in the bottom of the ninth, and it had Caminero's imprints all over it. And this time, he made his impact first at the plate and then on the basepaths — twice, no less.

Rays designated hitter Yandy Diaz started the rally with a one-out single and then Rangers lefty Robert Garcia walked Jonathan Aranda on four pitches. Jose Caballero pinch-ran for Diaz, and scored four pitches later when Caminero singled to center field to make it 3-2.

Jake Mangum flied out for the second out, bringing up Christopher Morel, who hasn't been playing much lately and hit only .143 in May. But he hit a hard shot — with 103.5 mph exit velocity — down the third base line that Josh Jung fielded but spun him around. He went to throw to second for a force-out, but Caminero had a big lead at first and got a good secondary lead to beat any potential throw. Morel was safe at first and the bases were loaded.

Taylor Walls was next, and he's been there a bunch this season, batting late in a game with the bases loaded. He hit a ground ball in the hole on the right side and easily beat Garcia to first base. Aranda scored to tie the game, but Caminero kept on running and caught Semien off guard. By the time he looked up, Caminero was already dashing toward home. Semien's throw was a split second too late and he scored the winning run for the 12th win in the past 15 games.

It was a big win, and certainly the weirdest. "Probably won't see a two-run walk-off infield single again,'' Walls said. “That won't happen again. I mean, it’s crazy,”

Probably not. But it was also the second straight night where a fielding blunder got the Rangers a game. They've lost three in a row, are 29-34 and a season-low five games over .500. The Rays are 33-29, and four games over .500 for the first time since the end of the 2023 season.

Weird.

“I shifted my eyes to see what’s going on at third, but Caminero just made a great play,’’ Semien said. “His speed took over. When I threw it, I felt like he was going to be out. He had a great burst and a great slide. The whole thing was just, I don’t know, unusual.’’

Caminero, who was the American League Player of the Week last week along with Seattle's Cal Raleigh, can impact the game in a lot of ways. We saw all of that on Thursday. The talk is that he's the star of the future, but his present is damn impressive.

He sure knows how to seize a moment. And he did that by being aggressive on the base paths in the ninth inning.

“We battled. We fought,” Caminero said through Rays translater Eddie Rodriguez. “When we came into the ninth inning, I thought and I talked to myself, I was like, 'This is our inning. We're going to get them here.'

“I was just trying to be aggressive there. As soon as he put the ball in play, I was gone. I didn’t even look at (third-base coach) Brady (Williams). I just went.”

Semien's moment of hesitation was just enough. The two-run walk-off infield single. Something else.

“That was a little nuts,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “I wasn't anticipating looking up and seeing Cami coming around.”

Getting a series sweep was a big deal for the Rays, who had previously lost 13 of 14 games to the Rangers — including two at home in the 2023 playoffs to ruin a dream season.

They're winning games every way imaginable right now, with great pitching and defense, timely hitting and a few nice breaks from the opposition.

Pitching kept them in the game Saturday. Pepiot gave up the two homers, but that was it in six solid innings. Eric Orze and Cole Sulser got through the eighth and ninth without allowing a run, at least giving them an opportunity to rally.

That's all they needed.

“Just try to make it interesting in the ninth and let anything happen -- and anything happened tonight,” Pepiot said. “That was a wild one.”

The Rays are home this weekend as well, playing three day games at Steinbrenner Field, starting on Friday at 1:10 p.m. ET. The start time was moved up from the evening because of a Metallica concert later that night across the street at Raymond James Stadium.