B. Lowe 'ignites' Rays with bases-clearing triple to snap skid

ST. PETERSBURG -- The Rays needed this one.

They entered the seventh inning on Sunday afternoon at Tropicana Field trailing by a run, mired in a season-long six-game losing streak that looked like it might soon reach seven. Royals starter Michael Wacha kept Tampa Bay off the bases entirely for five innings, and off the scoreboard for six.

The Rays needed something to go their way. They needed a big hit. They got it from Brandon Lowe.

Lowe lined a pinch-hit, three-run triple into the right-field corner in the seventh inning, which proved to be the decisive moment in Tampa Bay’s 4-1 win over Kansas City. Just like that, the Rays’ six-game skid was over.

“Every win's a big win,” said Lowe, who recorded the 13th pinch-hit triple in franchise history to deliver the Rays’ 13th comeback win of the season. “Anytime that you go through a little skid, as we did, I mean, it sucks. You want to move past it as quickly as possible. They happen, but to get a win that way, to show up in those high-stress situations, it feels good and I feel like it really ignites everybody.”

Plenty of people played a part in this one, too.

Starter Taj Bradley pitched five scoreless innings on a career-high-tying 95 pitches, shutting down a Royals lineup that had scored at least seven runs in each of its last six games. The right-hander leaned mostly on his electric fastball and diving splitter and grinded through a 35-pitch fifth to keep the Rays in the game.

“I'm just trying to make the next pitch,” Bradley said. “I don't want to let them get a free base on a walk or anything, but if they do, I want them to earn it.”

Meanwhile, Wacha completely silenced the Rays, who didn’t have a baserunner until José Caballero hit a leadoff double down the left-field line in the sixth. And the Royals struck first, as Bobby Witt Jr. ripped a leadoff homer to left off reliever Shawn Armstrong in the sixth.

Then the Rays’ bats finally came to life.

Harold Ramírez led off the seventh with a bloop single to center field. Isaac Paredes pulled a double to left, ending Wacha’s day. Reliever John Schreiber hit Randy Arozarena to load the bases, then manager Kevin Cash deployed his entire bench of left-handed hitters.

Jonathan Aranda pinch-hit for Amed Rosario and rolled a grounder to first, and the Royals forced out Ramírez at the plate. Lowe, who had hit a few balls hard since coming off the injured list, but had just one hit in his last 19 plate appearances to show for it, then batted in place of Caballero.

“Thank God I didn't hit it at somebody this time,” Lowe said, smiling. “The way that we've been swinging the bat and stuff like that, I mean, stuff was going to change eventually.”

Lowe said he wasn’t sure what order the lefties would hit in, but he watched Aranda’s at-bat “intently” to see how Schreiber might attack him. Then he unloaded on a first-pitch cutter and ripped it into the right-field corner to clear the bases and put the Rays on top.

“Just having that ball fall in there felt like a sigh of relief, and everybody was excited about that,” Richie Palacios said.

Lowe came around to score on a two-out single by Jose Siri, giving Tampa Bay a 4-1 lead, but the Rays’ aggressive moves put them in an unusual spot heading into the final innings.

By pinch-hitting for Rosario and Caballero, the Rays lost both of their experienced shortstop options. So they turned to Palacios, who pinch-hit for Alex Jackson, for only his second professional appearance at shortstop, a position he played for one game in the Minors in 2018.

Palacios has played plenty of second base, and he was taking grounders at third base Sunday morning. When Cash asked him if he could handle shortstop, Palacios said, he responded, “Yeah, I'll be good.”

“I asked him, 'Have you ever played short?' And he said, 'In college,’” Cash said. “And I said, 'Are you any good?' He said, 'I got drafted as a shortstop.' That was good enough for me.”

It worked out just fine. Arozarena threw out a runner at the plate in the eighth, closer Pete Fairbanks escaped a bases-loaded jam in the ninth to pick up his fifth save of the season and the Rays had something to celebrate heading into Monday’s off-day.

“The guys needed to feel good about something, feel good about themselves, so happy that we have an off-day with a 'W',” Cash said. “You can go into some of these stretches like we've been in, and that 24-hour day off doesn't feel too good. So, hopefully we appreciate it a little bit more.”