ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — During previous winters Daz Cameron received offers to play in Japan but this past off-season, he was ready to take the plunge in Asia, signing with Korean Baseball Organization’s Doosan Bears in November.
A first-round pick back in 2015 with an electric combination of bat speed and athleticism, he expected to be there for a season or two and see where it took him. Instead he hit the ground running, batting .287/.360/.473 with nine homers and nine stolen bases in 75 games, started drawing some interest from back in North America, got his release back in June and signed a minor-league deal with the Toronto Blue Jays on July 8.
“To be here now wasn’t the plan, but things worked out with Toronto, they wanted me to join the club and phase me through the system and see how things would go,” said Cameron. “You create relationships along the way but here is the end goal, is where I wanted to be, back at home. I’m glad that I’m getting the opportunity to do so.”
The Blue Jays, who had past interest in the right-handed hitting outfielder, feel the same way, selecting his contract last weekend when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. suffered his concussion and he hit his first home run for them Thursday in a 5-1 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays.
Cameron’s first of the season came in the fifth, after Nathan Lukes had gone deep earlier in the inning, and he added a single in the seventh, scoring on George Springer’s two-run single that padded the Blue Jays lead.
Shane Bieber, having stymied the New York Yankees on a run over six innings in his last time out, was even better this time out, holding the AL East leaders to a run on four hits with seven strikeouts in seven innings, all while throwing a season-high 101 pitches.
Kazuma Okamoto also went deep as the Blue Jays won a seventh consecutive series around a one-game, makeup game loss at the Chicago Cubs, improving to 63-66. They now head to New York for three games with the Yankees, the last club currently with a winning record remaining on their schedule.