José Caballero homers to lift Rays over Dodgers in 10 innings

LOS ANGELES — The Rays didn’t play a particularly clean game Saturday night. They made costly misplays in the field and ran into outs on the bases, the kinds of mistakes a team can’t afford against a Dodgers club with the best record in baseball. They gave up big home runs with men on base and lost a four-run lead they built up against likely future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw.

But thanks to big swings from Junior Caminero and José Caballero and big pitches from Manuel Rodríguez and Garrett Cleavinger, the Rays walked out of Dodger Stadium after 10 innings with a wild, 9-8 win that pushed them back above .500, at 65-64.

“It feels good to take the win. Whenever we take the win, throw out how we win,” Caballero said. “If we lose, we can talk about the details. But when we win, it’s just a party. We won the game.”

It didn’t look good for the Rays heading into the ninth inning, though. They scored four in the first, but starter Taj Bradley allowed six runs (five earned) on seven hits, including a pair of two-run homers by Teoscar Hernández and Shohei Ohtani, in his six innings of work.

The Dodgers tacked on another run in the seventh to make it a 7-5 game, and the Rays — in what seemed to be the encapsulation of another frustrating night — only managed to score one run despite loading the bases with nobody out in the eighth.

Then Caminero, their slugging top prospect, gave them new life in the ninth.

Leading off the inning against Evan Phillips, Caminero initially thought he walked on a 3-1 fastball that appeared to be outside the strike zone. It was called a strike, but Caminero said through interpreter Manny Navarro that he “immediately just tried to forget about it” and concentrate on the next pitch.

Phillips’ next offering was a low fastball, and the 21-year-old Caminero ripped it out to center field at 107.8 mph for a game-tying home run.

“He stayed in there,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “Young player [didn’t] let the emotions get the best of him, got a fastball out over the plate. We’re starting to see what he’s capable of doing with the bat in his hand.”

The Statcast-projected 418-foot shot was Caminero’s second home run of the season — and his second missile to center in as many nights at Dodger Stadium. With two extra-base hits on Friday and his first three-hit game in the Majors on Saturday, baseball’s No. 2 prospect is starting to show what he’s all about.

“He’s unbelievable, man. He hits the ball really hard,” Caballero said. “I haven’t seen a guy hit the ball as hard as consistent [as him]. It’s impressive to see.”

A night after he couldn’t finish the ninth inning in an eventual loss, Rodríguez worked around a one-out walk to keep the Dodgers off the board and send the game to extra innings.

Caballero capitalized on the opportunity.

With one out and automatic runner Jonny DeLuca on third base, Caballero took a breaking ball for a strike and a fastball outside the zone before hammering a slider out to left-center field for a go-ahead, two-run homer.

“There’s not a better feeling than that,” Caballero said. “After having the lead almost the whole game and then, at the end, losing the lead and coming back like that is amazing.”

The Rays exploded in celebration, with Caminero and Christopher Morel jumping in front of the dugout before Caballero had even finished rounding the bases.

“I probably screamed out there more than he did,” Caminero said, grinning.

There was just one thing standing in the way of Tampa Bay’s final celebration of the night. Well, three things: Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman, who were due to face the lefty Cleavinger in the 10th.

“I don’t know if there’s any three like that in baseball there,” Cash said. “They’re all really, really special players.”

With a two-run lead, Cleavinger did his best to keep the automatic runner off his mind, but Ohtani — fresh off his walk-off grand slam Friday night — and Betts launched back-to-back flyouts to make it a one-run game. Cleavinger got Freeman to hit a ball on the ground to Morel, who fired it to Yandy Díaz for the final out.

Before starting his postgame interview in the visitors’ clubhouse, Cleavinger let out a big exhale. The way the night played out, there may have been no better way to summarize the victory.

“Definitely a roller coaster,” Cleavinger said. “We’re kind of accustomed to that over here, too — grinding out wins and doing it however we can.”