Rays third baseman Junior Caminero kept the power leaderboard crowded Tuesday night, launching his 35th home run and moving into a tie for the major league lead with three other players. That’s the latest in a season a Tampa Bay player has ever sat atop the home run race, passing the previous mark set by Jose Canseco in late June of 1999.
Elsewhere in the division, Taylor Walls turned an unlikely night into a memorable one. The Rays shortstop, better known for his defense than his bat, had gone almost 100 games without a homer before breaking through with a two-run shot off Mason Barnett in the fourth inning.
He wasn’t done there. In his next trip, the switch-hitter came around from the right side and drilled a solo homer off Brady Basso, giving him homers from both sides of the plate in the same game for the second time in his career.
The first came in April 2023 against the Reds, and one of those blasts came off current teammate Casey Legumina.
In Pittsburgh, Paul Skenes showed a little more run prevention than he has lately, holding the Marlins to one earned run on Tuesday. But the outing still came with a few warning lights.
The reigning NL Cy Young winner averaged a season-low 95.7 mph on his four-seamer and was lifted after only 65 pitches. Skenes’ fastball velocity has been down all season, though he had still been going deeper into games and keeping opponents in check earlier in the year.
That has changed of late: he posted a 6.25 ERA in July and has now been limited to five innings in both starts this month.
Washington is about to bring another young arm into the mix. Left-hander Jackson Kent is expected to join the Nationals on Wednesday and start against a Cubs team that opened the series with a win last night.
The Nationals drafted Kent in the fourth round in 2024, and he’s logged a 3.72 ERA over 20 starts split between Double-A and Triple-A this season. The 23-year-old is viewed as a consensus top-10 prospect in the organization.
Washington has continued to get younger in its rotation, with Foster Griffin and Zack Littell recently replaced by Andrew Alvarez and Jake Irvin. Kent is projected to take Miles Mikolas’ spot, which would leave Trevor Williams as the lone veteran on the staff.
In Other News...
Rays Add Infield Help As A Roster Squeeze Suddenly Hits
The Rays are adding some infield insurance in Jorge Mateo, agreeing to a major league contract with the utility man after his release from the Braves. Tampa Bay has valued players who can move around the diamond and help on the bases, and Mateo fits that mold as the club navigates another sudden roster shuffle. His arrival also means the Rays will need to clear a spot on the 40-man roster before the move can become official.
Ben Williamsons move to the injured list is part of what opened the door, and the timing adds to the sense that Tampa Bay is juggling more than one middle-infield issue at once. Carson Williams is also in line to be squeezed out of the current mix, leaving the Rays to sort through a fresh set of roster decisions as they try to keep the bench flexible and the defense covered. [Read more 🡒]
White Sox Deadline Fix Has Already Become A Catcher Problem
The August 3 trade deadline was supposed to give several contenders a cleaner path into October, but some of the headline additions have already turned into different kinds of problems. In Chicago, the White Soxs catcher upgrade quickly lost its shine when Joey Bart was sidelined by injury, and the club has been left patching together a position that was meant to be stabilized for the stretch run.
The Rays were looking for a postseason boost of their own when they brought in Freddy Peralta, a move designed to deepen the rotation and sharpen the margin for error. Instead, his early outings have not provided the steadying presence Tampa Bay was after, leaving the team with another deadline question to solve as the games start to carry more weight. [Read more 🡒]
Taylor Walls Gave The Rays A Lift They Desperately Needed
Taylor Walls gave Tampa Bay a much-needed jolt against the Athletics, and he did it in a way that stood out even for a player known more for his glove and legs than his power. In his 97th game of the season, the Rays shortstop went deep twice, once from each side of the plate, adding a rare burst of offense to a lineup that had been looking for any kind of lift.
For a player batting .217 this season, the outburst carried extra weight. Walls came into the night with modest power numbers and 18 stolen bases, but his swings helped push the Rays to a 9-2 lead entering the seventh inning, exactly the kind of cushion they have been needing as they try to steady the offense around him. [Read more 🡒]