Nathaniel Lowe Homers as Rangers Beat Rays

The former Tampa Bay Rays first baseman is having a career season for Texas and he made it even better against his former team.

Nathaniel Lowe’s renaissance came back to haunt his former team, as he and Corey Seager combined to lead the Texas Rangers to a 4-3 win over the Tampa Bay Rays on Friday night at Tropicana Field.

Lowe, who was drafted by Tampa Bay in 2016 and broke into the Majors with the Rays in 2019, was moved to the Rangers in a low-level trade in late 2020. Lowe hit .251 in two seasons with the Rays, but he hit .224 in the COVID-19 shortened 2020 season.

With the Rangers, Lowe was hitting .280 for this Rangers career entering Friday’s game and .308 thus season, as he’s attempting to become the first Texas player in six years to finish a season hitting .300 or better. Since the All-Star break, he leads all of Major League Baseball in hits.

Lowe finished just 1-for-4 on Friday, but his hit was part of a four-run surge in the top of the third that put the Rangers (63-81) ahead for good against the Rays (80-64)

“We have a lot of potential,” Lowe said. “We have great bats in the lineup and great bats on the bench. We scratched one out.”

With two outs in the third, Bubba Thompson reached on a broken-bat single, beating out a throw by Rays second baseman Taylor Walls. Marcus Semien singled to left to move Thompson over and Corey Seager brought both home with a double to the left-center field gap. That tied the game at 2-2.

Lowe was next and he went opposite field for his 25th home run, scoring Seager and giving the Rangers a 4-2 lead.

Rangers starter Martín Pérez and Rays starter Corey Kluber lasted into the sixth inning, and both left factoring into the decision. Kluber — the former Ranger who pitched one inning in his first start in 2020 before a season ending injury — gave up all four Rangers runs through the sixth, giving up nine hits in the process. Pérez went 5 1/3 innings before giving way to the bullpen, and he gave up nine hits and all three Rays runs through the sixth, while walking one and striking out three.

The Rays nickel-and-dimed their way to those three runs. Two came in the bottom of the second, as Francisco Mejía singled scored a run and Jose Siri’s fielder’s choice ground ball scored a run, which at the time gave Tampa Bay a 2-0 lead.

In the sixth, three straight hits from Taylor Walls, Mejía and Siri chased off Pérez. Walls scored on Mejía’s double. Jesus Tinoco came in for the Rangers and recorded two outs to get the Rangers out of the inning with the lead.

The Rangers bullpen rolled. Jonathan Hernández, Brett Martin and Matt Moore threw two scoreless innings of relief and handed it to José Leclerc for a ninth-inning save. He did load the bases with two outs but got out of the jam as Harold Ramirez grounded into a fielder’s choice groundout to Rangers third baseman Josh Jung.

“We seem to find ourselves in that situation quite often, a one-run game,” Rangers interim manager Tony Beasley said. “It was nerve-wracking, but I have faith in Jose and he stepped up and finished it.”

The Rangers are now 14-32 in one-run games.

The Rangers continue the series with the Rays on Saturday by starting Jon Gray (7-6, 3.79). This will be the first time he and Perez have started back-to-back since Gray’s hip injury in August. Gray will be on a pitch limit in his second start since returning from a hip flexor injury. Glenn Otto (6-8, 4.71) will start Sunday’s finale for Texas.

The Rangers also announced the prospects they would be sending to the Arizona Fall League on Friday.

---

You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard

Catch up with Inside the Rangers on Facebook and Twitter.