My Two Cents: With Brandon Lowe Emerging, Rays' Lineup Gets Very Long
OAKLAND, Calif. — It's been a long first month to the baseball season for Tampa Bay second baseman Brandon Lowe, but that's the thing about Lowe, ever the tinkerer, ever the worker, ever the internal motivator.
The glass-half-full guy and incessant note-taker in him also knows this: "It's ONLY been a month,'' he said Saturday night after hitting two early home runs to help the Rays get an 8-2 victory over the Seattle Mariners, their sixth straight on a long West Coast road trip.
Lowe's tough start appears to be over with the simple turn of the calendar. He was brutal in April, hitting just .177 and he went his final 14 April games — and 51 at-bats — without hitting a home run.
But since Sunday and the start of a new month, he's had a hit in all seven games. He's seeing the ball better — four walks in the past two games — and he's laying off bad pitches. He's been hitting the ball hard all week, and on Saturday night, he got two balls elevated for home runs.
Here we go again.
This same thing happened last year, when he hit just .182 in April. Unlike this year so far, May wasn't great though, but it got better every month from there in his 39-homer, 99-RBI season. He hit .241 in June, .288 in July, .262 in August and .301 in September.
It's starting to come for Lowe, who has worked hard in the cage to fine-tune things, and he relies heavily on his handwritten notes, something he does since his days in college at Maryland.
“We figured some stuff out,’’ Lowe said. “I have a notebook that I write a lot of stuff down in, and hopefully we cracked a few codes and we’re going to start having some fun.
“There were some mental adjustments and physical adjustments. It’s hard to just place one little thing, because hitting is very difficult. You don’t get to just write one thing and be like, ‘OK, this is a fix-all kind of moment. Baseball is kind of that way where, one week, it feels like you’re going to hit six homers, and then you go a couple of weeks without hitting a homer. Baseball’s a weird game that way.''
Lowe said he has about 15 notebooks dating back to college. He has a new digital reMarkable notebook now, but he still gets to hand-write the notes, which lets them sink in better.
"It's something in college that I figured out, that I learned and remembered stuff better when I wrote it down instead of typing it or anything,'' Lowe said. "Madison (his wife) actually got me a fancy notebook, where it's electric, but I have the ability and feel of me writing in it. But I have like 15 notebooks, and I have them all in the same spot, so that's nice.''
Lowe knows that baseball isn't an easy game, so he tries to keep his frustration level in check when he's struggling. Still, it feels good to see progress.
"Understanding that baseball is the game that it is, last year was probably one of the worst starts that I ever had but it turned out that I had a pretty good season,'' Lowe said. "This year hasn't been as bad as that. It didn’t feel like a home run drought or anything like that. It’s not like I hadn’t been hitting the ball hard. It just hadn’t been in the air.”
Rays manager Kevin Cash was thrilled to see Lowe's multi-homer night. He had even said earlier in the week that Lowe's at-bats were becoming more productive, and he could sense a turnaround coming.
It's here
“Yeah, that was really encouraging,’’ Cash said of the two solo shots. “Good for Brandon. I know he likes hitting home runs, and we like it when he hits home runs.’’
And what did Cash see differently from Lowe?
“Just getting closer with his contact rate,’’ Cash said. “The misses kind of turned maybe into ‘just misses.’ It was nothing that really stuck out, just the feel, more importantly than anything, that he’s really good and he’s not going to go south much longer. He’s proven that he’s a really good hitter.’
Lowe's solid week has coincided with several others in the Rays' order finally getting hot, too. Manuel Margot is 11-for-25 this week with two huge homers and 12 RBIs. A couple of other guys who struggled in April — outfielder Randy Arozarena and catcher Mike Zunino — are getting hot, too.
That's what we're seeing in this six-game winning streak. Sure, the pitching has remained mostly very good, but now the Rays' lineup is a battle for any opposing pitcher from top to bottom. It's a long lineup at the moment, with no time to catch your breath. Shoot, Saturday night, even No. 9 hitter Kevin Kiermaier had two hits.
The Rays have scored 39 runs on this trip so far, a 6.5 clip through the six wins. With their pitching — they've only allowed 20 this trip, with seven in two games and only a total of six runs in the other four — that's going to win a lot of games.
Getting Lowe going is huge, because he is a top-of-the-order guy and you need production out of him. Winning magnifies the good things, of course, but the Rays are really starting to put everything together after a slow-ish start to the season.
Getting everyone rolling at once is scary. Arozarena, who hit .195 in April and still hasn't hit a home run, already has 10 hits in May, and the month is only seven days old. He only had 15 hits in April, in 77 at-bats
Same with Zunino. Through April 28, he was hitting .083 with just three hits in 36 at-bats, with no homers and just one RBI. But since then, he's hit three homers and driven in eight runs. Throw in fellow catcher Francisco Mejia being back from COVID — he of the .407 batting average — and that's a lot of production all at once.
Baseball is a fickle game, of course, and there's no telling if all this production contnues, but it sure seems like the Rays are heading in the right direction. He have zero worries with the top of the rotation with Shane McClanahan, Drew Rasmussen and Corey Kluber, and the best guys in the bullpen make up a best-in-the-league group.
The question has always been, will the Rays hit enough? Now that guys are finally getting hot, that question is getting answered.
The Rays are 18-10 now, tied with the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Angels for the most wins in the American League. They're playing well, which comes at a perfect time because it's hard to win a lot of games on a 10-day West Coast swing. They've already assured themselves of a winning record on the trip, with four games to one, one more Sunday in Seattle and then three in Anaheim against former skipper Joe Maddon and the Angels.
Get hot, stay hot. That's always the goal.
And it seems to be happening.
Watch the full Brandon Lowe interview
Here is the complete video of Brandon Lowe's postgame press conference on Saturday night after he hit two home runs. Give it a watch.
Related stories on Rays baseball
- HAPPY HOMER HOMECOMING (Saturday): Getting the start against the team he grew up rooting for, Tampa Bay starter Drew Rasmussen allowed just one run in five innings and got a ton of run support in the Rays' 8-2 win over the Seattle Mariners. Brandon Lowe hit two early home runs and Manuel Margot, who is on fire, hit a grand slam in the eighth inning to leave no doubt in the Rays' victory. CLICK HERE
- MARGOT THE HERO WITH 9TH INNING HOMER (Friday): Manuel Margot has had at least one hit in every game this month, but none were bigger than the three-run homer he hit in the ninth inning Friday night to give Tampa Bay an 8-7 victory over the Seattle Mariners. CLICK HERE
- ZUNINO HOMER PACES RAYS (Thursday): Mike Zunino hit a huge three-run homer against reigning Cy Young Award winner Robbie Ray, and Shane McClanahan won the pitcher's duel for Tampa Bay in a 4-3 win over the Seattle Mariners on Thursday night in Seattle. CLICK HERE
- RAYS SHUT OUT A'S (Wednesday): For the first time ever, the Tampa Bay Rays swept a series in Oakland on Wednesday, winning the third of three games thanks to six scoreless innings of three-hit ball from Corey Kluber in the 3-0 win. Manuel Margot had the key hit in the eighth inning for the Rays. CLICK HERE
- RAYS WIN WITH DRAMATIC RALLY (Tuesday): Mike Zunino hit a two-run homer in the ninth inning to tie the game, and then the Tampa Bay Rays scored five runs in the 10th innings to snare a 10-7 victory over the Oakland A's on Tuesday night. The Rays bullpen was once again spectacular, pitching 6 2/3 innings in regulation and allowing just two hits. CLICK HERE
- RAYS WIN OPENER (Monday): Drew Rasmussen was spectacular once again and the Rays won the series opener over the Oakland A's 6-1 on Monday night. CLICK HERE
- RAYS SCHEDULE: Here is the complete Tampa Bay Rays schedule for the 2022 season, with results so far, plus dates, gametimes and location for the rest of the season. CLICK HERE
Photo gallery
Brandon Lowe, Kevin Cash
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Mike Zunino, Brandon Lowe
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