Friday, March 27

PHOENIX -- In the eighth inning Tuesday night, Yandy Díaz had a chance to hit the Rays back into the game. Granted an ideal matchup against left-hander Jalen Beeks with two runners on and Tampa Bay down by two, Díaz wound up hitting into an inning-ending double play, continuing what has been a frustrating start to the season.

Afterward, Díaz admitted he wasn’t feeling good at the plate. He acknowledged the obvious frustration. He vowed to stay positive and work through it. And manager Kevin Cash reiterated the Rays’ confidence in their muscular mainstay.

“If we could hand-pick somebody to come up, that's him,” Cash said after the 5-1 loss at Chase Field. “And we would do it again tomorrow night, and have confidence that he'll get it going.”

Sure enough, Díaz came up in a similar spot Wednesday night. With two outs in the seventh, two runners on and the Rays down a run, the leadoff man came to the plate against right-hander Shelby Miller. This time, Díaz delivered a go-ahead two-run single to center that flew off his bat at 113.4 mph -- his hardest-hit ball of the season.

He came through in the 11th inning of a wild 7-6 win, driving in what turned out to be the winning run on a double to right off reliever Drey Jameson to cap a three-hit, three-RBI night. And he did it again Thursday night, going 3-for-5 with a game-tying RBI single in the ninth.

“I don't feel quite there yet, but I'm just helping the team -- and thank God it was my turn today to do that,” Díaz said through interpreter Eddie Rodriguez. “I'm trying very hard, and hopefully the rest of the nights that are coming are going to be better than this one.”

For all that’s taken place over the first four weeks of the season, one of the most perplexing issues has been the source of the Rays’ offensive production. Players like Jonathan Aranda, Kameron Misner, Jake Mangum and Chandler Simpson have immediately stepped into big roles. But it’s been less of a smooth road for two of Tampa Bay’s most important hitters: Díaz and Brandon Lowe.

Entering Thursday’s series finale against the D-backs, Díaz was hitting .230/.271/.380 -- good for just an 88 OPS+, well below his 130 mark with the Rays from 2019-24. And Lowe was batting just .217/.241/.325 (64 OPS+) with no extra-base hits since his last homer on April 5 in Texas.

The Rays don’t expect those numbers to look that way for much longer.

“There’s some underneath information saying that they're swinging the bats pretty well. They're hitting the ball hard, and both of them, they're not getting the results,” Cash said Wednesday. “Trust what they're doing. They're both very good hitters, proven hitters with a track record. I just don't want to see them getting too frustrated on themselves.

“They're as big a key as anybody to our lineup. Being leaders on the club, leaders in the lineup, you watch how they go about their business -- it's pretty meaningful. And I know that they want to come through, just as bad as I want them to come through.”

Indeed, there are some underlying metrics that suggest Díaz and Lowe are due for better luck. Díaz’s expected batting average (.267) and slugging percentage (.428) are noticeably higher than his actual statistics, according to Statcast. And Lowe’s expected average (.291) and slugging percentage (.549) are significantly better than the results he’s produced.

As Lowe put it, “I've caught a really bad case of the at-'em balls.” That was particularly evident against the Yankees on Saturday, when he hit into a pair of outs with exit velocities of 103.1 mph and 104.5 mph after smashing a low, opposite-field line drive … right at third baseman Oswaldo Cabrera.

At one point that day, Lowe sat down in the dugout and said, “I don't know what to do. I can't really do anything else.”

And it wasn’t lost on him that his “worst”-hit ball of the game was the team’s biggest hit: a two-run, 80.9 mph single to center that capped the Rays’ game-tying rally off closer Devin Williams.

“You don't get to this level unless you're willing to work your tail off to try to be better. And for someone to come up to you and look at you and be like, 'Well, you're doing everything right.' The results aren't there, so that's wrong,” Lowe said. “It's a really crappy game sometimes, because I truly believe it's the only game in the world where you can do everything right and be wrong, or you can do everything wrong and be right. It's an extremely difficult game in that aspect.”

But the Rays aren’t worried. They think it’ll turn around for both veterans based not only on what they’ve done before, but how they’ve looked this season.

• The Rays came back late Thursday night to secure a series win in Arizona. Read more>>

• Add Mangum to the Rays’ lengthy list of injured outfielders. Read more >>

• Simpson talked about his callup, debut and unique style of play. Watch here >>

• A crazy, back-and-forth game Wednesday ended with Eric Orze’s first MLB save. Read more >>

Lowe reached a cool milestone this week in Arizona, wrapping up his tour of 30 Major League ballparks by playing at Chase Field. He acknowledged it’s not quite as difficult a feat to accomplish as it was under the old schedule, when visiting cities in the other league was a rare experience, but still found it rewarding.

“I think it takes about two years now, but foregoing all that, there’s injuries and everything else that keep you off the road,” he said. “It’s a cool thing to be able to get to every ballpark and play in every one of them.”

Lowe said he only has one keepsake from a road ballpark, as he gathered some dirt from the Oakland Coliseum during the Rays’ final trip and paired it with a photo of the ballpark from the Rays’ victory there in the 2019 American League Wild Card Game.

“I’ll explain that to my son one day,” he said, smiling.

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