TAMPA -- All-Star third baseman Junior Caminero exited the Rays’ 2-1 win over the Blue Jays on Wednesday night after six innings due to mid-back tightness.
Caminero’s status is day to day, the Rays announced. He was already scheduled for a day off on Thursday, when the Rays and Jays will finish this four-game series, but he hopes to return to the lineup for the final stretch of Tampa Bay’s season.
Caminero was 0-for-3 with two strikeouts in Wednesday’s game at George M. Steinbrenner Field and exited with the score tied at 1. He said he began feeling some tightness in his back during the Rays’ series at Wrigley FIeld last weekend, but he was able to play through it.
It flared up again when he was putting on his shoes before Wednesday’s game, however, and it eventually became too much to endure. After six innings, manager Kevin Cash said, Caminero let the coaching staff know he “felt it grab a little bit.”
“It felt horrible when I went to play defense in the first inning,” Caminero said through interpreter Eddie Rodriguez. “I kind of stopped around the mound, and right there, it was hard to breathe. So I tried to play it out, but then after I had a couple of at-bats, I was like, I couldn't go anymore.”
While the Rays have fallen out of the postseason race this month, sitting at 74-78 after snapping a three-game skid, Caminero is still chasing franchise history down the stretch.
The All-Star slugger has launched 44 home runs this season, two shy of Carlos Peña’s single-season club record, and he has driven in 108 runs, 13 away from matching another record held by Peña. The 22-year-old hopes to return as soon as Friday night, when the Rays begin their final home series against the Red Sox, but promised he would “play it smart.”
“We're going to see what happens and how I feel,” Caminero said, “because I want to be in uniform for the last week.”
With Caminero out of the lineup, Tristan Gray moved from second to third base in the seventh. Christopher Morel shifted from left field to second base, and Jake Mangum entered the game to play left.
While they were missing their top young star, a few Rays rookies shined bright in the one-run victory.
Left-hander Ian Seymour allowed only four hits and a walk while striking out three over seven innings, the longest outing of his career. Seymour threw 100 pitches, the most in his professional career, including 71 strikes.
Being so committed to throwing all his pitches in or around the zone paid off in a big way against an aggressive Toronto lineup.
“I would say [it was] just an adjustment of taking what the hitters were giving me,” said Seymour, the first Rays rookie to allow no earned runs over seven innings or more since Alex Colomé did so in Cleveland on June 21, 2015. “So instead of trying to put people away and limit contact, it's just, if they're gonna swing early, letting them put balls in play and rely on the defense.”
Fellow rookie Chandler Simpson delivered the defensive highlight of the night, robbing Alejandro Kirk of a three-run homer in the fourth inning. Tracking Kirk’s fly ball, Simpson glided back toward the center-field wall, judged that it wouldn’t get too far out, then timed his leap to pull off his second homer-robbing grab of the season in the Majors.
“I've seen him do it plenty of times,” Seymour said. “That’s a big, game-changing play, and I couldn't be more grateful that it happened.”
Seymour clapped into his glove as he walked back to the mound, and Simpson pumped his fist and celebrated the highlight-reel play.
“Real pumped, just because of all the hard work that I'm putting in on defense,” he said. “The fact that I was able to come down with that was big.”
Simpson came up with the biggest hit of the night, too, capping a three-hit game with two doubles. After fellow rookie Carson Williams ripped a two-out double to center in the seventh, Simpson slapped an RBI single to center to give the Rays a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.
So, what’s better: Taking runs off the board or driving them in?
"I like them both equally,” Simpson said, smiling. “They're both good."