ST. PETERSBURG -- Brandon Lowe was the Rays¡¯ most valuable player last season, a worthy top-10 finisher in the American League MVP voting. But when he steps up to the plate these days, he sees the same numbers you do. And for a time, he said, that pressure affected him, making him believe he needed a 4-for-4 game every day to quickly emerge from his early season slump.

But Lowe recently took a step back and realized this year isn¡¯t like last season. The Rays still have nearly 100 games left to play, so he has plenty of time and at-bats ahead of him. As he put it Friday afternoon, ¡°We won¡¯t be hitting .180 forever.¡±

Especially not if he has more nights like this one.

Lowe blasted a go-ahead homer to right-center and knocked a bloop single to shallow left in the Rays¡¯ 4-2 victory over the Orioles on Friday night at Tropicana Field.

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While left-hander Ryan Yarbrough followed up his nine-inning complete game with a strong six-inning start, it was Lowe¡¯s two-run shot off lefty Keegan Akin in the fourth inning that turned the tide and helped Tampa Bay become the Majors¡¯ first team to 40 wins.

¡°The guy works his [butt] off, and there's no question about that. He's a great player, and we rely on him a lot,¡± Yarbrough said of Lowe. ¡°So it doesn't surprise me that he's going out there and helping the team, and I know he's going to do that the rest of the year for us.¡±

The Rays have won 21 of their last 26 games since May 13, building up the AL¡¯s best record and matching their overall win total at the end of last year¡¯s shortened schedule. But the strange thing about Tampa Bay¡¯s torrid stretch is that, as hitting coach Chad Mottola recently noted, it¡¯s not as if the lineup is hitting on all cylinders.

Randy Arozarena hasn¡¯t caught fire yet. Kevin Kiermaier and Mike Brosseau, who each had a multihit game on Friday, have had their ups and downs. And Lowe, an AL All-Star in 2019 who was even better last year, hasn¡¯t quite clicked at any point this season.

¡°He's not where he wants to be. He's working every day to get where he knows he should be,¡± Mottola said last Sunday. ¡°That's another example of, we're performing, but there's still plenty of guys in the lineup that know they have to do better.¡±

Lowe knew it, too.

He said he has been able to escape the stress of the game at home, in the company of his wife, Madison, and dog, a mini-bernedoodle named Collie. At the ballpark, though, he has been working -- searching in the batting cage for the right feeling, poring over video, consulting friends and coaches outside the organization. Finally, he thought he and Mottola figured out something ¡°that we were kind of overlooking¡± during Wednesday¡¯s game.

But in his first at-bat against Akin, Lowe went down on three pitches. It was the continuation of a troubling trend for the left-handed-hitting second baseman: He has been more or less himself against right-handers, but southpaws have given him all sorts of trouble. After that second-inning strikeout, Lowe was just 4-for-64 with 29 strikeouts against lefties this season.

Manager Kevin Cash has been more selective with Lowe¡¯s matchups, occasionally sitting him against a lefty starter in favor of a right-handed infielder like Brosseau. But Lowe was back in there Friday night.

¡°It's definitely nice that they have this confidence in me, that they see that it's going to rebound,¡± Lowe said in front of the home dugout Friday afternoon. ¡°Hopefully, I can repay that confidence here pretty soon.¡±

He did. With Arozarena on third base and the Rays trailing by a run with one out in the fourth, Lowe fell behind in the count, 1-2. He said his only goal at that point was to get Arozarena in and tie the game. But Akin left a 91.1-mph fastball over the middle of the plate, and Lowe unloaded on it. He sent the ball a projected 420 feet out to right-center field at 106.7 mph.

¡°We know what he's capable of. We know that, when he's right, he can knock balls out of the ballpark to any spot in the stadium,¡± Cash said. ¡°That swing and the way that ball carried looks like Brandon when he's right. That's what he's doing.¡±

Lowe agreed, noting that he made another slight adjustment before the 1-2 pitch from Akin. Whatever it was, Lowe said, ¡°something just kind of clicked right before that pitch.¡± Reviewing the video later, he found that he was, indeed, taking a more direct path to the ball.

¡°Everything felt really good for that swing,¡± Lowe said. ¡°Hopefully, we can build on today.¡±

In his next at-bat, Lowe hit a 66.9-mph bloop that landed in left field for a single. That¡¯s the kind of good luck he has been looking for, the kind he probably deserves after some hard-hit outs earlier this season. With a few more hits like that, and a few more nights like this, he won¡¯t have to worry about hitting .180 for long.

¡°We've got all the confidence in the world in Brandon, and Brandon's got a lot of confidence in himself,¡± Cash said. ¡°He's a big, big part of our team, and the last thing we're going to do is run from him.¡±