PHILADELPHIA, Pa. (WWSB) – The Tampa Bay Rays were riding high heading into this week\u2019s MLB All-Star break. <\/p>\n
They held the best record in the American League at 56-38, and held a three-game lead in the American League East division over the New York Yankees.<\/p>\n
Then life threw the Rays a curve ball… or in this case, a sinker.<\/p>\n
In the top of the third inning of Tuesday\u2019s All-Star Game in Philadelphia, St. Louis Cardinals\u2019 pitcher Riley O\u2019Brien threw a sinker that didn\u2019t quite sink as intended. <\/p>\n
Instead the near-98 mph pitch connected with Caminero\u2019s left hand. He fell to the ground in obvious pain, and soon after jogged off to the dugout, not to return to the game.<\/p>\n
The Rays had entered the mid summer classic swinging for the fences, and one big reason why had been the stellar play of Caminero.<\/p>\n
At just 23 years of age, The All-Star third baseman became the youngest player since at least 1900 to hit homeruns in six-straight games. He\u2019s belted 28 of them in the first half of the season, fourth-most in the majors.<\/p>\n
Caminero also made it to the semifinals of Monday\u2019s Home Run Derby in Philadelphia, connecting on seventeen homers in the first two rounds combined.<\/p>\n
The Rays\u2019 organization and fans feared that the sinker from O\u2019Brien could have broken Caminero\u2019s hand, or at least a finger, and could in turn sink the team\u2019s momentum for the season.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, x-rays on his hand came back negative. It was a scary moment that could have been much worse.<\/p>\n
On an additional positive note, the All-Star game was won by the American League, 4-0. A large reason for that outcome was the stellar play from the A-L pitchers, including three from the Tampa Bay Rays pitching staff.<\/p>\n
Five Rays players made the All-Star team, including Caminero, Yandy Diaz, starting pitchers Drew Rasmussen and Nick Martinez, and closer Bryan Baker.<\/p>\n
The trio combined for two innings pitched, one hit, zero runs allowed, one walk, and two strikeouts in the contest.<\/p>\n
The American League pitchers tossed 15 strikeouts in total, and it was just the tenth All-Star Game shutout in history, and the first since the American League\u2019s 2-0 win over the National League in 2013.<\/p>\n
And back to Caminero…he\u2019ll take full advantage of the break this week, glad that the word \u201cbreak\u201d didn\u2019t have an alternative meaning. The third baseman says he\u2019s thankful for the good report on his hand, and that he intends to play in both games of Friday\u2019s doubleheader in Boston to start the second half of the season.<\/p>\n
Rays fans everywhere are breathing a collective sigh of relief.<\/p>\n
The first pitch of game one Friday in Boston is set for 1:35 p.m.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 WWSB. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA, Pa. (WWSB) – The Tampa Bay Rays were riding high heading into this week\u2019s MLB All-Star break.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[84499,140299,135,3815,137,136],"class_list":["post-341634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-junior-caminero","tag-mlb-all-star-game","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}