Rays and Dodgers come to a deadlock

The Tampa Bay Rays have two Lowes, Brandon and Nate, and both are pronounced differently, but it doesn’t matter when they come to bat, play the field or run the bases.

And Wednesday night in game two of the Major League Baseball World Series played at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, it was second baseman Brandon who was the higher Lowe with his bat, slugging a pair of home runs to knot the American League champions at a game apiece in the best-of-seven at the sparkling-new home of the Texas Rangers.

Not only had this Lowe been in his extended postseason slump, but his opposite field homers were just the right time to bounce back for the 6-4 win over the American League champion New York Yankees, who had won game one, 8-3. It figured to be a close series after these two finished first in their respective leagues with the the two best records.

Said Lowe, the Brandon one who was a 2010 All-Star who and led the Rays with 14 home runs and 37 RBI this season. “Yeah, those felt really good. It felt great to kind of get back and contribute to the team. You know, they’ve been doing so well for the past month, it felt really good to get back and actually start doing stuff again.”

Southpaw Blake Snell was the Tampa Bay starter and he struck out nine in 4 and one-half innings and didn’t allow a hit until Chris Taylor’s two-run homer trimmed the gap to 5-2 in the fifth inning. The Dodgers threatened to complete a big comeback in the eighth, but Tampa Bay’s relievers held firm.

Brandon Lowe had help, with third baseman Joey Wendle driving in three runs, the same as this Lowe. Nick Anderson got four outs for the win. Diego Castillo earned the save when he struck out infielder Chris Taylor, the only batter he faced. Left-hander Aaron Loup also did a nice job, throwing a called third strike past Cody Bellinger with a runner on second base to end the eighth before retiring the first two hitters in the ninth.

The same Lowe belted a an opposite-field home run to left-center in the first off of Los Angeles starter, rookie Tony Gonsolin, putting the Rays ahead for the first time at this first-time-ever neutral-site for the National Pastime Classic, and it was the 27th four-bagger of the postseason, matching a major league record. He had been hitting only .107 for this postseason, and in an even worse 4-for-48 slide (.083) the past 13 games.

In the fifth, it was again Lowe going deep with only his second opposite-field shot of the entire season, the first a short time earlier in this game. By this time, and with Dustin May on the mound as the fourth LA hurler, it was 5-0. But the Dodgers then picked up home runs from catcher Will Smith and shortstop Corey Seager, with Seager’s solo blast in the eighth his seventh homer and same number of RBI in the postseason, and they are also the most home runs by a shortstop in any MLB postseason. Smith’s home run came in the sixth off Anderson.

In the fifth, Snell already had his strikeouts when he walked Kiki Hernandez with two down and up came Taylor, the No. 9 batter, to homer on Snell’s 80th pitch. Snell had thrown only 10 pitches in a 1-2-3 first frame that included strikeouts of right fielder Mookie Betts and third sacker Justin Turner. After 11 of his first 15 pitches in the second were balls and brought a pair of walk and a strikeout, the 2018 Cy Young Award winner retired the next 10 hitters until a walk to Hernandez in the fifth.