ST. PETERSBURG — Tampa Bay Rays third baseman Junior Caminero has 78 homers in 293 big league games, 45 last season and 26 already this year, but the longest ball he has ever hit may have traveled roughly 11,000 miles from Tropicana Field — over a giant shed at a tiny Australian ballpark that seats about 1,500 people.

Four years ago, during the 2022-23 Australian Baseball League winter season, a then-19-year-old Caminero launched a blast at Empire Ballpark on Australia’s southwest coast that witnesses say traveled between 450 and 480 feet, clearing a shed that sits 400 feet from home plate and rises roughly 80 feet high before extending another 60 to 70 feet deep.

“It’s probably one of the farthest balls I’ve seen hit in my life,” former Perth Heat player Jake Bowey said.

Caminero had joined the Perth Heat after getting traded from the Guardians to the Rays in 2021 and putting up strong minor league numbers. In Perth, he hit 14 homers in just 155 at-bats — second best in the entire league — with 37 RBIs and a .303/.368/.613 slash line.

“For a lot of teams, there’s a lot of prospects that have come down, but Caminero was clearly a guy, like, this guy’s going to The Show,” Perth Heat broadcaster Paul Morgan said. “He was head and shoulders above any prospect. He was box office.”

The monster shot came on an 0-1 count off Adelaide Giants pitcher Jordy Grose on the night of Nov. 12, 2022. Caminero unloaded over the left-center field wall, over the camera stand and entirely over the shed — a feat Morgan said he had never seen in 10-12 years of calling Heat games. The blast fought through the Fremantle Doctor, the stiff breeze that blows off the Indian Ocean and makes Empire Ballpark a difficult place to hit for power.

“The wind gets pretty gnarly, so to do that is phenomenal,” Morgan said. “450, easy.”

Bowey, who has played against power hitters including Delmon Young and Jon Singleton, said the Perth dugout “went crazy” after the homer. He recalled watching Caminero take 15 batting practice swings and hit 14 home runs, all on a line drive, with the lone miss hitting the top of the fence.

“I remember watching one of his BP rounds and he took about 15 swings and he hit 14 home runs, all on an absolute line drive,” Bowey said. “And the one that he didn’t hit a home run hit the top of the fence. And it didn’t get above 10 feet off the ground.”

Morgan said no one is sure the ball was ever recovered. Beyond the shed lies open ground, a grain train railway and, as the broadcaster noted, snakes — enough that the head groundskeeper sometimes has to chase them off before fans enter the gates.

Caminero, now barely 23 years old, continues to add to his home run total with the Rays this season.