Rangers 1B Nathaniel Lowe Eying .300

The Texas first baseman is trying to become the first Rangers player to hit .300 since 2016.

Texas Rangers first baseman Nathaniel Lowe is having a career season. And he is in position to do something no one in Rangers uniform has done since 2016 ­— hit .300 in a season.

Lowe is hitting .295 as he and the Rangers enter a three-games series with the Detroit Tigers at Globe Life Field starting Friday.

He is coming off a huge game against Colorado, a 16-4 Rangers victory, in which he went 3-for-6 with a triple, home run, five RBI and three runs. That homer was his 20th, joining Corey Seager, Marcus Semien and Adolis García as Rangers hitting that plateau this season.

In 2016, both Elvis Andrus (.302) and Adrian Beltre (.300) hit .300 or better with enough at-bats to qualify for the batting race. Naturally, there are other ways to gauge the effectiveness of hitters, as The Dallas Morning News pointed out on Twitter about Lowe on Thursday:

What is becoming a morning feature: Your morning Nathaniel Lowe stat: He's now 14th in AL in OPS for the year at .829

— Evan Grant (@Evan_P_Grant) August 25, 2022

But batting average has traditionally been a barometer of a hitter’s quality.

Among qualifying Texas hitters, the best single-season batting average since 2016 was Andrus’ .297 in 2017. Beltre actually hit .312 that season, but injuries limited him to 94 games and 384 at-bats, which weren’t enough to qualify him for the batting title (hitters need 502 at-bats, or approximately 3.1 per game, to qualify).

Lowe has experienced peaks and valleys along the way in 2022. He was the Rangers April Player of Month after hitting .313 with one home run and nine RBI. But in May he went the opposite direction, hitting just .205 with two home runs and seven RBI. But the Rangers stuck with him and they’ve reaped the benefits.

He bounced back in June with a single-month career-high of seven home runs and hit .307 to pull up his batting average up to .278.

Since the All-Star break, he’s been red-hot. He’s batting .356 with eight home runs and 24 RBI. His home run on Wednesday added to his career-high single-season total (it was 18, set last season). He’s now hit 17 of his 20 home runs since June 1. He has the most hits in the Majors since the All-Star Break and is in the Top 10 in the American League in batting average.

He also had a 22-game on-base streak from July 25 to Aug. 16, which was the best on the team this season and the second-best of his career.

Lowe’s career up to this point has been all about potential. After a 13th-round selection by Tampa Bay in 2016, he kicked around the Rays system for a couple of years before a Major League promotion. He was traded to the Rangers before the 2021 season.

It’s safe to say Lowe is fulfilling his potential and could take a place among Texas .300 hitters by season’s end.

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You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard

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