Caminero Goes Nuclear: 3 HR, 6 RBI Buries KC 13-2

Junior Caminero hit three home runs and drove in six runs as Tampa Bay dismantled Kansas City 13-2 on June 25. Ian Seymour made it a complete demolition, spinning 6.2 innings of no-hit ball with seven strikeouts.

The game was over before most fans finished their first drink. Caminero's first-inning two-run shot to left — 372 feet, Aranda scoring ahead of him — swung the win probability from 60% to 77% in a single swing. That was the tone-setter. By the fourth, Victor Mesa Jr. had added a three-run homer to right (355 feet), scoring Mullins and Walls to push the lead to 5-0. Caminero came back in the fifth with a solo shot to left at 387 feet, and a Simpson double plated Palacios to make it 7-0. Kansas City's Seth Lugo lasted just five innings, allowing seven hits and seven earned runs against three strikeouts — a line that tells the whole story of his night.

The eighth inning was where Tampa Bay stopped playing baseball and started running up the score. A Feduccia groundout scored Mullins. A Fortes single to left scored Walls. Then Caminero stepped in and launched his third homer of the night — 393 feet to left center — scoring both Fortes and Aranda to push the final to 13-0 before Kansas City's consolation shot. Caminero finished 3-for-5 with three home runs, six RBI, and three runs scored. That's not a box score line, that's a statement. Jonathan Aranda quietly went 3-for-5 with two runs scored, and Cedric Mullins crossed the plate twice. This looks like a Tampa Bay lineup that is genuinely difficult to navigate top to bottom at the midseason mark.

Seymour's performance deserves its own paragraph. Six and two-thirds innings, zero hits, zero earned runs, one walk, seven strikeouts — against a Kansas City lineup that, it should be noted, is already dealing with the expected loss of Cole Ragans to elbow surgery. The Royals' rotation appears to be under real strain heading into the second half of the season. Carter Jensen's 425-foot solo homer in the ninth — the longest ball hit all night — was the only offense Kansas City could muster, and it came with the game already decided at 13-0. The story of the night was Caminero, full stop, but Seymour's near no-hitter through 6.2 innings made this one of the more complete team performances you'll see at the midseason point.