ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — It took eight games for Brandon Lowe to drive in his first runs of the season. Now, like the Rays, the second baseman is rolling.
Lowe hammered a grand slam Sunday and drove in five runs on the day as the Rays beat the A’s 11-0 and ran their winning streak to nine games in front of 11,159 fans at Tropicana Field.
The Rays are the only remaining undefeated team in Major League Baseball. The 9-0 start is the first in MLB since the 2003 Royals. They have done it definitively, too, winning each game by at least four runs.
Drew Rasmussen continued the Rays rotation’s quiet domination of opposing hitters. He threw a nearly perfect, seven scoreless innings, retiring 21 of the 22 batters he faced. The right-hander gave up a double to Ramon Laureano in the second inning and struck out eight.
Rasmussen has begun the season with 13 scoreless innings, having given up just three hits and no walks. Jeffrey Springs, Saturday’s winning pitcher, also has started the season with 13 scoreless innings.
The Rays posted back-to-back shutouts and the hitters outscored the A’s (2-7) 31-5 over the three-game series
Lowe snapped his RBI drought on Saturday with a three-run homer and now has eight RBIs in two games. Sunday, Lowe continued to play catchup with the hard-hitting Rays with his third career grand slam. It was the second grand slam the Rays hit in the series with the A’s. Lowe also singled in Christian Bethancourt from second base in the seventh inning.
With the three homers the Rays hit Sunday, they have 24 through nine games, leading the majors.
Wander Franco got the Rays started with a solo shot in the first off right-hander James Kaprielian, who was able to get through the next two innings unscathed. It was Franco’s fourth home run of the season, tied for second most in the majors.
Kaprielian hit Isaac Paredes with a pitch to start the fourth, then Harold Ramirez “singled,” on a ball that A’s third baseman Jace Peterson could not get out of his glove cleanly. Ramirez beat out the casual flip from shortstop to second base to get Bethancourt a chance to reach on a fielder’s choice, setting up Lowe.
The 28-year-old Lowe is one of the left-handed bats the Rays were counting on having a bounce-back season when the front office decided not to pay big money for a free agent this winter. Lowe hit just eight home runs and played in just 65 games last season because of a stress reaction in his back. In 2021, however, Lowe broke out as a power hitter, hammering 39 homers.
Ramirez, who worked on his launch angle this spring to try and hit with more power, hit his third home run of the season — all in the last four games — in the fifth inning.
