ST. PETERSBURG -- After sitting out the last four games due to tightness in his left groin, Yandy Díaz returned to the Rays' lineup Saturday afternoon and picked up right where he left off: performing like arguably the best hitter in the Majors so far this season.

Díaz continued his scorching-hot start with a three-hit day and a three-run homer, one of Tampa Bay’s three home runs in an 8-4 win over Milwaukee at Tropicana Field. The victory improved the Rays’ record to 34-13 overall and 21-3 at home, making them one of two teams (alongside the 1978 Red Sox) in the Modern Era to win 21 of their first 24 home games to begin a season.

The biggest blow of the day was Díaz’s blast to center field off Brewers left-hander Eric Lauer in the second inning, his team-leading 11th homer of the season.

“Nice to have him back in the lineup,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said, smiling. “He can do some pretty good things.”

Seven weeks into the season, Tampa Bay’s leadoff hitter has done a lot of good things.

Díaz leads the American League in batting average (.333) and on-base percentage (.436) and paces the Majors in OPS (1.054), just ahead of Ronald Acuña Jr. and Aaron Judge. He’s scored 34 runs and driven in 27, and he’s recorded nearly as many walks (23) as strikeouts (25).

“He's such a rock for us,” said Rays starter Zach Eflin, who held the Brewers to three runs while striking out eight over seven efficient, walk-free innings. “To see Yandy Díaz come up as the first hitter an opponent team faces is incredible. … He's everything you want in a leadoff hitter.”

For years, every assessment of Díaz focused as much on what he wasn’t as what he was. Analysts raved about the corner infielder’s disciplined approach and bat-to-ball ability but always wondered why such a muscular man hit for so little power. What would it take for Díaz to turn his hard ground balls into home runs?

This year, he has left little room for criticism. 

He’s still hitting for average and getting on base. And the power has come along, too, thanks to the modified approach at the plate he displayed against Lauer in the second inning Saturday.

After grounding out in his first at-bat since last Sunday at Yankee Stadium, Díaz came to the plate with two outs and the Rays leading by a run. He whiffed on a curveball and took a cutter outside the strike zone. With the count even, he wasn’t going to make the same mistake he did on the first pitch.

“I was looking for it again,” said Díaz, who extended his hitting streak to a career-high 13 games, through interpreter Manny Navarro. “So if he were to throw it again, I was ready for it. … All I try to do is just make hard contact, and it seems like they're just going out.”

Sure enough, Díaz crushed Lauer’s next curveball a Statcast-projected 421 feet to center with an exit velocity of 104.9 mph. Saturday was his 40th game of the season, and he is already only three home runs shy of the career-high mark he set with the Rays in 2019.

“It’s pretty remarkable what he has done. I know he's worked hard, and he really just trusts himself to have the confidence to be able to take some chances,” Cash said. “When he needs to see the ball maybe a little bit deeper and pick up the hit, he can do that as well.”

He showed that in his final at-bat, shooting an opposite-field single off reliever Jake Cousins to start Tampa Bay’s two-run rally in the seventh inning. He was then replaced by pinch-runner Luke Raley, but he said it was for precautionary reasons, and he’s expected to start Sunday’s series finale.

“He's going to play with a little bit of soreness right now,” Cash said. “If we can manage the workload, or we need to really have an opportunity to score on a double from first base, we’ve got to be mindful of those decisions.”

Díaz didn’t do it alone for the homer-happy Rays, though. Harold Ramírez and Christian Bethancourt also slugged their seventh home runs of the season, giving Tampa Bay an MLB-leading 90 after 47 games. Saturday was the club’s 26th multi-homer game and MLB-best 15th with at least three longballs.

“It's incredible. They're doing it pretty much every single night, which has been awesome,” Eflin said. “We're close to 50 games in, and there's been no let-up.”