Junior Caminero has built a reputation on violent contact and towering blasts, so another trip to the Home Run Derby hardly comes as a surprise. But one of the most memorable swings of his career didn’t happen in the majors. It came in January 2025, in Game 7 of the 2024-25 season championship in the Dominican Republic Professional Baseball League, when Caminero launched a walk-off solo shot 454 feet to straightaway center field and delivered a title to his childhood favorite team over Tigres del Licey.
The home run had the kind of drama that makes a moment stick, and Caminero says he saw it coming. On the latest episode of ESPN podcast “ Sources Tell Jeff Passan,” he explained that he had already warned Licey catcher Francisco Mejía, a close friend, not to let pitcher Jairo Asencio try another fastball after the first one missed outside.
“I told him, ‘If Jairo Asencio throws me a fastball again, look.’”
Asencio went right back to the fastball, and Caminero made him pay. Caminero said the ball was “Way gone,” and he believed it traveled even farther than the official 454 feet.
Then came the celebration. Caminero flipped his bat some 40 feet into the air, high-fived teammates before he had even reached halfway to first base, and turned the whole thing into a 56-second trot.
“I blacked out,” Caminero said. “I don’t remember when I ran to the base.
If I see the video? OK.
But in that moment, when I went to the base, I blacked out.”
He said the confidence was there even before Asencio delivered the pitch. Watching Asencio return to the mound for a second inning, Caminero made another prediction to someone in the Escogido dugout.
“I told myself, ‘If Jairo Asencio comes back … big problem,’” Caminero said. And once the fastball came, “The game’s over,” Caminero added.
That swing became part of the launch pad for what followed in MLB. Caminero hit 45 home runs in his first full season in 2025 and earned his first All-Star selection. This year, he has 26 homers and is headed to his second Midsummer Classic.
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