MLB trends: Junior Caminero's home run history, Mariners' extracurriculars and the Orioles' constant turnover

The stretch drive has arrived. It is still the regular season, though many teams are playing postseason games every night. Less than two full weeks remain in the season and there is plenty to be decided. Division races, wild card races, award races, and more. Here now are three trends to keep an eye on as we get into the most meaningful games of 2025.

Caminero approaching home run history

Perhaps it's because the Rays have faded out of contention and aren't an especially interesting team save for a handful of players, but third baseman Junior Caminero's tremendous season has largely gone overlooked. Going into Tuesday's game, the 22-year-old third baseman was slashing .260/.301/.541 with 44 -- 44! -- home runs.

Caminero hit No. 44 on Sunday and has 16 home runs since Aug. 6, the most in baseball and three more than any other American League player.

Playing home games in home run-happy George M. Steinbrenner Field has not boosted Caminero's power output much, if at all. He's hit 22 home runs in 302 home plate appearances and 22 home runs in 310 road plate appearances. Only Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, Cal Raleigh, and Kyle Schwarber have hit more home runs on the road this season.

"Season age" is the player's age on June 30, so although Caminero turned 22 on July 5, this counts as his age-21 season. Only one player has hit more home runs in their age-21 season or younger, and Caminero has a chance to break that record.

Mathews and Ott are Hall of Famers and two of the very best hitters ever. Acuña and Bellinger went on to win MVPs not long after their age-21 seasons. Company doesn't get much better than that. This much power at this age is almost unprecedented.

There are holes in Caminero's game. The .301 on-base percentage is an eyesore. His third base defense rates a tick below average and at times looks quite a bit worse. He's grounded into 31 double plays, eight more than anyone else and the most by any player in more than a decade. Caminero's game is not well-rounded, but also, he just turned 22. What 22-year-old has it all figured out?

Carlos Peña holds the franchise record with 46 home runs in 2007. Caminero figures to break that record, if not this year then at some point in the future. His power production and hard-hit ability is among the best ever for his age group. Caminero is a special talent who could become a more complete and even more dangerous hitter as he gains experience.

Mariners working overtime

With nine straight wins going into Tuesday's series-opener with the Royals, the Mariners are the hottest team in baseball, and they are in first place in the AL West this late into the season for the first time since their historic 116-win season in 2001. This coming weekend's series with the Astros in Houston could very well be the single biggest series of the 2025 MLB regular season.

The Mariners certainly haven't made things easy on themselves. They are 30-21 in one-run games, which is a) the fifth-best winning percentage in one-run games, and b) the fourth-most one-run games in baseball. Only the Pirates, Braves, and Giants have played more one-run games than Seattle. That's a lot of close games and high-leverage appearances for the pitching staff.

In extra-inning games, the Mariners were 10-11 going into Tuesday. That's not a great record, obviously, though what really stands out is the sheer number. Those 21 extra-inning games are the most in baseball, two more than any other team, and when the Mariners go long, they go really long. They have played:

• Five 10-inning games
• Eight 11-inning games
• Five 12-inning games
• One 13-inning game

The Mariners have played six games that went at least 12 innings. Excluding games involving the Mariners, the rest of baseball has played only 10 games that went at least 12 innings. League-wide, roughly one out of every 14 games goes to extra innings. For the Mariners, it's a touch more than one out of every seven games. Once a week they play (at least) a 10th inning, basically.

Not surprisingly, Seattle's pitchers and hitters have taken on the largest extra-innings workload in baseball by a mile. Here are leaderboards for hitter's plate appearances and pitcher's batters faced in extra innings this season:

To put this another way, Mariners pitchers have thrown 39 extra innings this year. The Red Sox are a distant second with 23. Andrés Muñoz leads baseball with 7 ⅓ innings and 33 batters faced in extra innings. That's 13% of his season workload. As a closer, Muñoz already pitches a ton of high-leverage innings. Adding the automatic runner on top of it only ratchets up the pressure.

The 2025 Mariners do things the hard way. They play a lot of one-run games and they play more extra-inning games and more extra innings in general than any other team. It's a lot of stressful games and also just more wear and tear on the players. Credit to them though. The Mariners have handled this huge workload and now the AL West title is there for the taking.

O's revolving door on offense

This has been a very disappointing season for the Orioles, who have hovered around 10 games under .500 since manager Brandon Hyde was fired in May. There are some silver livings, most notably Trevor Rogers emerging as an ace, but three years after the long rebuild ended, the O's were supposed to be in World Series contention, not looking for silver linings.

Due to trades and injuries, the Orioles have had a revolving door on the position-player side this year. They've had 34 non-pitchers appear in a game this season, the most in baseball, and 18 of those 34 non-pitchers have appeared in at least 25 games. That is also the most in baseball. Only two Orioles will appear in 100 games:

When I saw that stat, I just figured it was just a quirk and not especially notable. Turns out it's historic. Excluding seasons shortened by work stoppages and the pandemic, only two teams in AL/NL history have had only two players appear in at least 100 games since baseball's modern era began in 1900:

• 2025 Orioles: Jackson Holliday and Gunnar Henderson
• 1906 Cardinals: Pug Bennett

That's it. Only 12 other teams have had as few as three players appear in 100 games; eight of the 12 were 1921 or earlier. This is happening a bit more frequently (the 2011 Twins, 2018 Orioles, 2021 Guardians, and 2022 Reds each had only three 100-game players), but still, it's pretty rare. Who could have guessed three 100-game players happened only 14 times in history?

Injuries will limit Colton Cowser, Ryan Mountcastle, Tyler O'Neill, Adley Rutschman, and Jordan Westburg to fewer than 100 games. Ramón Laureano, Cedric Mullins, Ryan O'Hearn, and Ramón Urías would have reached 100 games with the Orioles had they not been traded away at the deadline. Injuries on the position-player side are the biggest reason the O's lack 100-game players. They're also one of the biggest reasons they will miss the postseason.