By John Romano
Tampa Bay Times
TAMPA — Call it a statement. Or maybe just a reminder.
Call it whatever you like, but the Rays came out of the All-Star break with something to prove.
And they made an immediate impression in an 11-1 win against the Orioles on Friday night.
“We needed to feel good about ourselves because we didn’t feel good about ourselves for 10 days,” Rays manager Kevin 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 and we needed to find a way to win a close game or a separated game, we’re not going to get greedy.”
From May 20 to June 26, the Rays were as hot as any team in baseball.
And from June 27 to July 13 they virtually kissed it all away.
So, yeah, there was an urgency to the first game after the All-Star break. It wasn’t do-or-die — the season isn’t that old yet — but it was important for the Rays to get back to the brand of baseball that had them challenging the Yankees for the American League East lead just a few weeks ago.
And they did that emphatically Friday night.
How emphatic?
Fresh off his star-making turn at the Home Run Derby, Junior Caminero continued swinging a hot bat with three hits, including two home runs and three RBIs. His first-inning blast went 439 feet off the leftfield scoreboard for the longest home run of his young career.
With 25 homers on the season, Caminero is now on pace to hit 41 just weeks after turning 22.
“It’s an amazing thing,” designated hitter Yandy Diaz said via team interpreter Eddie Rodriguez. “If he [prepares] himself, he can hit 50.”
The Rays hit four home runs and scored 11 or more runs for the ninth time this season. A year after finishing 29th in the league in runs scored at 3.72 per game, the Rays are currently seventh in the majors with 4.69 runs per game.
“We’re going to have ups and downs, it’s part of baseball,” Caminero said via Rodriguez. “But it was great that we were able to come out and get a win today.”
Taj Bradley threw six shutout innings to give the Rays their AL-leading 49th quality start of the season. Bradley, whose ERA had ballooned to 4.95 in mid-June, now has a 2.74 ERA over his last five starts.
Bradley had been considering going to his Georgia home and taking in the Home Run Derby during the All-Star break but instead chose to remain in Tampa so he could get a bullpen session with Friday’s start looming.
Pitching coach Kyle Snyder sent Bradley a batch of pictures to remind him of what he’s supposed to look like in various stages of his delivery, and Bradley videotaped his bullpen to show Snyder what he’d been working on.
“I was just attacking the zone like me and Snydes have been talking about, getting back to what I was doing so well in the minor leagues and early in my career,” Bradley said. “Just having the cutter and knowing what pitch is my best secondary pitch at this point and just using the changeup in spots.”
There’s still work to be done. Even with Boston losing Friday afternoon, the Rays remained in fourth place in the AL East, 1.5 games behind the Red Sox and a full 5.5 games out of first place.
At their high point, the Rays were 11 games above .500. With the trade deadline looming in less than two weeks, the Rays are a scant four games (51-47) above .500 and need to prove to the front office that there’s something worth investing in here.
“Like I always say, we’re going to have our bad moments. This is baseball,” said Diaz, who hit a sixth-inning grand slam and boosted his season batting average to .290. “But hopefully with the game today, we’re going to be better than we were [to start July].”
If he was worried about the team’s direction, Diaz hid it well. Cash said he jokingly asked Chad Mottola if Diaz was at the ballpark before the game and the Rays hitting coach indicated that was the case but he wasn’t sure if the DH had swung a bat since Sunday in Boston.
When asked about it after the game, Diaz grinned before the question was even completed.
“Nobody saw me here today, I guess they were looking for me,” Diaz said. “But I [took] five swings and went to the game.”
Were those the first swings he’d taken since Boston?
“Yeah.”
