ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) – Brandon Lowe busted out early and Tampa Bay’s bullpen hung on late.
Rays and Dodgers, tied in Texas.
Lowe shook loose from his extended postseason slump with two opposite-field home runs, and Tampa Bay held off Los Angeles 6-4 on Wednesday night to square the World Series at one game apiece.
“Yeah, those felt really good,” said Lowe, a 2019 All-Star who led the Rays with 14 homers and 37 RBIs this season. “It felt great to kind of get back and contribute to the team. They’ve been doing so well for the past month – it felt really good to get back and actually start doing stuff again.”
Blake Snell struck out nine in 4 2/3 innings for the Rays and didn’t allow a hit until Chris Taylor’s two-run homer trimmed it to 5-2 in the fifth. The Dodgers threatened to complete a big comeback in the eighth, but Tampa Bay’s relievers held firm.
Lowe and Joey Wendle each had three RBIs for the Rays, whose six runs and 10 hits were their most over the past 11 postseason games.
“I think today was a little bit better indicator of the kind of team that we are,” Wendle said. “Just a complete win, complete team win, everybody contributing at different parts of the game.”
Nick Anderson got four outs for the victory. Diego Castillo earned the save when he struck out 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 to end the eighth before retiring the first two hitters in the ninth.
“We did a good job of battling. They’ve got some really good pitchers. They got out to that early lead and we just weren’t able to overcome it,” Taylor said. “We did a pretty good job of fighting to the end and we just weren’t able to come up with the big hit we needed.”
After an off day, Game 3 in the best-of-seven Series matches two big-game pitchers starting on extra rest Friday night. Charlie Morton gets the ball for Tampa Bay against Walker Buehler.
Lowe hit a solo shot to left-center in the first off rookie Tony Gonsolin, putting the American League champion Rays ahead for the first time at this neutral-site World Series with their 27th homer of the postseason, matching a major league record. The second baseman was hitting .107 this postseason, and in an even worse 4-for-48 slide (.083) the past 13 games since the start of the AL Division Series.
“Sometimes guys, you’ve got to allow them to go through some tough patches, and he’s been in one,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “He will go quiet for a little while, but he can get as hot as anybody in baseball.”
UP NEXT
Rays: Morton faces the first time since the 2017 World Series, when he pitched the final four innings for the Astros in Game 7.
Dodgers: Buehler’s only previous World Series start was Game 3 against Boston in 2018, when he threw seven scoreless innings in the only game the Dodgers won against Betts and the Red Sox in that Series.
