Brandon Lowe was confused when his first hit was followed by the flashing of “Home Run” on the Jumbotron and fireworks at PNC Park, given that it was a ground-rule double that bounced over the fence.
Lowe turned to second base umpire Paul Clemons for clarification, double-checking that he had flashed two fingers instead of circling one to signal a homer.
“I could’ve sworn I saw it bounce,” Lowe said. “Then, all of a sudden, I take my stuff off and hear the fireworks and I see the board and I had to ask him a couple times: ‘You said double?’ He was like, ‘Yeah, it was a double.’ I was like, ‘All right.’ I wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to end up on the news or something like that.”
Lowe ended up on the news anyway. He nearly homered in the eighth inning, settling for his second double with a two-run shot off the center-field wall to put the finishing touches on his former team as the National League Central-leading Pittsburgh Pirates beat the American League East-leading Rays, 5-1, on Friday night while wearing their new City Connect uniforms before a SkyBlast crowd of 24,198 at PNC Park.
The Pirates bounced back from one of their sloppiest games of the season after committing four errors in an 8-7 loss to the Washington Nationals in 10 innings Thursday with one of their cleanest performances.
“That was a better game,” Pirates manager Don Kelly said. “The way the guys can put yesterday behind and bounce back. What a crowd tonight, too. To have the energy in the stadium, City Connects were awesome. I thought (starting pitcher) Bubba (Chandler) set the tone early, in the zone, really competed with all of his pitches. It was great.”
Lowe went 3 for 5 with two doubles against the Rays, with whom the two-time All-Star second baseman was drafted in the third round in 2015 and spent the first decade of his career before being acquired by the Pirates, along with outfielder Jake Mangum and left-handed reliever Mason Montgomery, in a three-team trade in December.
Oneil Cruz’s two-run homer in the sixth inning gave the Pirates the lead, and Lowe’s two-run double put the finishing touches on his former team. The Pirates backed up Chandler’s quality start as the rookie right-hander retired 17 of the first 18 batters he faced and allowed one run on three hits and a walk over six innings.
Chandler (1-1) was efficient in throwing 62 of his 90 pitches for strikes, averaging 98.2 mph on 45 four-seam fastballs and drawing 24 swings and four called strikes. He touched triple digits three times.
The Pirates also got three-hit games from Marcell Ozuna and Spencer Horwitz, and both came through in the second inning. Ozuna led off the with a single under the glove of a sliding left fielder Chandler Simpson, advanced to second on a Nick Gonzales groundout to third and scored on Horwitz’s double to right field to give the Pirates a 1-0 lead. Konnor Griffin followed with a single to left, but Horwitz was thrown out at home plate by Simpson.
The Pirates, who went 4 for 13 with runners in scoring position, stranded runners on second and third with a groundout and a pop up in the third inning and left the bases loaded in the fourth, when Martinez escaped a jam by getting Lowe to hit a flyout to left.
Chandler retired the first seven batters he faced before Nick Fortes singled to right in the third inning. Chandler then retired the next 10 batters before giving up a single to Simpson with two outs in the sixth.
Chandler’s wild pitch up and in against Junior Caminero allowed Simpson to advance to second base, putting the Rays in scoring position for the first time. Caminero then hit a full-count fastball clocked at 100.2 mph to center to drive in Simpson and tie the score. After walking Jonathan Aranda on four pitches, Chandler prevented further damage by getting Yandy Diaz to pop up to first base.
“It was nice. Just want to set the guys up for success,” Chandler said of not forcing lefty Mason Montgomery to come out of the bullpen with inherited runners. “I don’t want Monty to come in there and have to get the hitter that I’m supposed to face out with my guys on base, because if those guys score Monty’s going to feel terrible about it. That’s just a bad situation to put your teammates in.”
The Pirates answered in the bottom of the sixth, when Horwitz hit a leadoff single but was forced out at second on Griffin’s grounder to third. Griffin stole second and advanced to third on a wild pitch, then scored when Cruz sent a 2-2 sweeper low and away from Griffin Jax 385 feet to right field for his sixth home run and a 3-1 lead.
“The thing that’s so impressive, he doesn’t have to muscle up to try to do that,” Kelly said. “That looked about as fluid and smooth as you can get. He killed it. It was kind of out front. He looked away. That’s just the power that he has, the elite hand-eye, bat-to-ball skills. He has the ability to do that every single at-bat.”
Added Lowe: “I think it’s pretty funny when you look at a guy and think, ‘That sounded terrible’ and he hit it 103. You’re just used to him hitting it so much harder and it going so much farther that you kind of get probably a little too used to the unreal. For him to go out there and hit a ball off the pitcher that was on the mound, that was impressive. He’s a pretty special player.”
Montgomery replaced Chandler in the seventh and extended his scoreless streak to five consecutive appearances. Montgomery has nine strikeouts in 4 2/3 innings over that span, including two against his former team.
After Gregory Soto followed with a clean eighth, the Pirates drew back-to-back walks by Horwitz and Griffin off Yoendrys Gomez to start the bottom half of the inning. Billy Cook pinch-ran for Horwitz and stole second, and Henry Davis dropped a sacrifice bunt to advance both runners into scoring position.
After Cruz went down swinging, Lowe worked a full count over eight pitches, then smacked a fastball 397 feet off the center-field wall for a double to score Cook and Griffin to give the Pirates a four-run lead. Dennis Santana gave up a double to Diaz and walked Ben Williamson before getting Cedric Mullins to pop up to first in foul territory to end it.
“I think the biggest thing is just having a good game and getting the win,” Lowe said. “It might be a little tiny bit sweeter coming against the Rays, but we have a common goal in this clubhouse and it doesn’t really matter who we’re facing. As long as we play a good baseball game and come out on top, we’re happy.”