Junior Caminero will start at third base and bat cleanup for the AL All-Stars on Tuesday night, a lineup role that turns a fan vote into a stage-setting assignment. He was named to the AL All-Star Team for the second consecutive year, but this time he arrives as a starter, not a replacement.
The game is scheduled for Tuesday at 8 pm ET on @MLBONFOX, and Caminero’s spot puts him in the middle of the AL order when the game begins. He turned 23 on July 5, and the selection gives him something Tampa Bay has never had before: the first player in franchise history to start consecutive All-Star games.
That detail matters because last year Caminero got in as the replacement for Jose Ramirez of the Cleveland Guardians, who did not participate. This year, fans pushed him into the starting lineup at third base, a different kind of honor and one that says more about where he stands now than where he was a year ago.
John Schneider will manage the AL All-Star Team, and he will have Caminero on his side when the game starts. The Tampa Bay Rays reached the break in first place in the AL East and three games ahead of the New York Yankees, a standing that gives Caminero’s selection even more weight inside a season that has already moved Tampa Bay back into the frame.
There is more than one Tampa Bay name in the picture. Yandy Diaz will come off the bench as the backup designated hitter behind Yordan Alvarez, while Caminero holds the starting third-base job and the cleanup spot. He advanced past Phase 1 alongside Kazuma Okamoto, but the larger story is simpler now: Caminero went from a replacement last year to the player fans chose to open the game in one of the highest-pressure spots in the order.
He has already done enough in a young career to make an All-Star appearance feel familiar. This one carries more reach. It is the start that marks him as a centerpiece, and Tuesday night will show whether the vote that put him there matches the role he has been handed.
