With his pop at Trop, hometown kid Caglianone logs 3rd multihomer game in June

ST. PETERSBURG -- Jac Caglianone has a lot of memories of watching Major League Baseball’s best from inside Tropicana Field as a kid.

Now, he’s back at the Trop for the first time as a Major Leaguer and creating his own memories.

The Tampa native continued his incredible month of June with another two-homer performance in the Royals’ 12-5 victory over the Rays on Tuesday night.

This is the same stadium where Caglianone sat behind the first-base dugout for numerous games as a youngster. He said that walking back into the Trop as a visiting player on Monday was “pretty surreal,” as all of those good times came rushing back.

So, could he have ever imagined that in his second game back home, he would have such a night to remember?

“Um, yeah,” Caglianone said with a straight face. When you’re as hot as he is at the plate right now, nothing is unimaginable.

“A home run here, even if it’s not for [the Rays] is still a really cool, special moment for me.”

With his father, Jeff, among many other friends and family in the same stands where Jac idolized the likes of David Price growing up, Caglianone launched a Statcast-projected 443-foot solo shot to the back wall of the right-field seats off of another Rays left-hander, Shane McClanahan, in the first inning.

Caglianone bested McClanahan again in the fifth, clobbering a 416-foot homer to left-center. The two had never faced off in a Major League game, but perhaps some off-field familiarity helped Caglianone as he and McClanahan -- who also hails from Southwest Florida -- met a couple of years ago and have developed a good friendship.

Caglianone hopes there’s no hard feelings after taking his friend deep twice.

“I've been waiting for him to take me fishing this offseason,” Caglianone said. “... I’ve got a lot of respect for him. I hope he's not too mad at me.”

Tuesday marked Caglianone’s fourth career multihomer game, and three of those have come since June 9. He is slashing .378/.459/.784 in June, while his nine home runs are tied with the Athletics’ Nick Kurtz for most in the American League.

Six of Caglianone’s dingers have come in just the past five games, which is tied with four other Royals for the most in a five-game span in team history. The last Royal to go on this kind of rapid power surge was Jermaine Dye in 1999.

“It’s actually truly special,” third baseman Nick Loftin said of what he’s seeing from Caglianone right now. “... When you see a guy with tools like that, it's really special, and the fact that he's able to hone in on them, especially with what he's doing this year, it's really remarkable. And we're getting front row seats for it.”

Loftin supplied the front end of back-to-back homers with Caglianone in the first inning. It was part of a four-hit night for Loftin who has 12 hits in his past seven games.

With 12 runs on Tuesday, the Royals are averaging 5.90 runs per game in June. Only the Brewers (6.33) have been more potent offensively. Kansas City’s success is even more remarkable when you consider that they have recently been without lineup staples such as Vinnie Pasquantino, Bobby Witt Jr. and Maikel Garcia, who went on the injured list prior to Tuesday’s game.

“We believe in our abilities and what we are capable of doing,” Loftin said. “We're going to continue to do that every single day, one pitch at a time, one day at a time, and when they come back into the lineup, it's going to be pretty scary.”

It would be incorrect to say that this series is Caglianone’s first time playing baseball inside Tropicana Field; he attended a Rays camp ... when he was 7 years old. From there, he can recall attending playoff games against the Rangers in 2010 and the Red Sox in ‘13.

Caglianone followed Price and Matt Garza and Evan Longoria -- “I thought those guys were just the coolest,” he said prior to Monday’s series opener.

Caglianone was the kid asking those players for autographs before the game. Now it’s come full circle as he’s been able to return the favor for today’s young fans who want his signature.

“Definitely not taking it for granted,” he said.

Caglianone admits that he had dreams of suiting up for the Rays back in those younger days. Now the hometown kid is all grown up and turning into one of MLB’s most dangerous sluggers right before our eyes. The Royals are thrilled that he plays for them.