Kevin Kiermaier wasn’t running at full speed when he hit a ball deep to right field in the sixth inning of the Rays’ 10-4 win over the Twins on Friday night.

Or at least, he wasn’t at full speed until he saw the ball hit off the right-field wall at Target Field, bounce over Trevor Larnach’s outstretched glove, and roll back into the middle of the outfield.

“He was going back on the ball and he made it look really interesting. I'm like, ‘Come on, just let me get a hit right here,’” Kiermaier said. “I saw it carom off the wall, then I started going.”

After that, Kiermaier put his head down and went into a full sprint around the bases. His normal sprint speed this season was 29.2 feet per second, but as he gained a head of steam and the adrenaline rushed through him, Kiermaier was tracked at 29.5 feet per second (0.5 shy of “elite” speed).

“I would've sent him right away,” Nelson Cruz said. “As soon as it hit the wall, I would send him all the way to home plate. It seems like he's moving quicker than other players.”

Kiermaier looked up long enough to look for the signal from third-base coach Rodney Linares, who’d just seen Minnesota second baseman Jorge Polanco bobble the ball as he turned to throw to the infield. Kiermaier was waved around third, he dug in for home and then barely got his left hand in ahead of the tag to complete the inside-the-park home run.

“I’ll tell you what; I was safe by that much. I was safe,” Kiermaier said. “The umpire, Roberto Ortiz, made a great call. It was very close. You want to be accountable in those situations. I would admit it if I wasn't, but I just got in, and what a rush it was.”

Kiermaier’s trip around the bases, the first inside-the-park home run for a Tampa Bay hitter since Avisaíl García on May 28, 2019, highlighted yet another explosive night at the plate for one of the best run-scoring teams in baseball.

Tampa Bay used a four-run seventh inning to push it past the eight-run threshold, marking the team’s seventh consecutive contest scoring eight or more runs. That made the Rays the third team in the modern era to score no fewer than eight in at least seven straight on a single road trip.

“We're putting up eight runs, nine runs, 10 runs, seven runs. Whatever it is, we're putting up a lot of runs,” manager Kevin Cash said. “When you're doing that, it takes more than one guy. Nelson has been just awesome for us, but we have a lot of guys that are doing really special things at the plate, between Brandon [Lowe], Randy [Arozarena], Austin [Meadows]. Just a bunch of guys that are really hitting balls hard, and a lot of them are leaving the ballpark.”

“Our goal is to, obviously, score more than the other team, and we're doing that pretty well right now,” said Shane McClanahan, who earned his seventh big league win.

Each of the Rays’ starting nine picked up a hit and seven recorded an RBI, while Manuel Margot was the lone starter to not cross the plate. Before Kiermaier’s home run, Yandy Díaz, Mike Zunino and Cruz (in his first game back at Target Field since being acquired from the Twins on July 22) all homered.

Cruz nearly stole the show when he homered in the third and received a loud ovation from the crowd. He’s had other first games back to the home ballparks of former teams, but Cruz said those experiences were “nothing like this.”

Not to be outdone, Kiermaier answered three innings later with his inside-the-parker, and he won’t let anyone treat his homer any different from the three hit by his teammates.

“Kind of funny how things work out, that being my third homer of the year, all my teammates giving me a bunch of crap for that. Rightfully so. I'll wear that,” he said. “But once again, I'll take a homer any way I can get it.

“Check the box score. My homer is just the same as Nelson Cruz, Z and Yandy Díaz.”