Lowe squares up slam so perfectly that 'I didn't feel it'

ST. PETERSBURG -- Brandon Lowe stood still for a moment, his feet still planted in the left-handed batter’s box and his sights set on the baseball he’d just pulverized. As the ball sailed toward the seats in right-center field, Lowe shifted the end of his bat into his left hand and tossed it toward the home dugout before beginning his trot around the bases.

Yes, after two years disrupted by injuries, Lowe is healthy. And yes, this is what he does when he’s healthy.

Right-hander Aaron Civale delivered the kind of start the Rays expect to see a lot more of this season, holding Toronto to just one run over six innings, and Lowe backed him up with a third-inning grand slam off Chris Bassitt in the Rays’ 8-2 win over the Blue Jays on Friday night at Tropicana Field.

Lowe’s fourth career slam came on a 1-1 cutter from Bassitt. The ball exploded off his bat with an exit velocity of 111 mph, according to Statcast, and traveled a projected 444 feet -- the third-longest home run and fifth-hardest-hit ball of his career, and the Majors’ first slam of the season.

“The ones that you hit the hardest are always the ones that you don't feel, and I didn't feel it coming off the bat,” Lowe said. “That was a pretty good sign. … Just kind of lets you know that you're doing the right thing at the plate.”

Bassitt had his way with the Rays for the first two innings, allowing only a walk while striking out five of the first seven hitters he faced. But new catcher Ben Rortvedt led off the third with a single to center field in his first at-bat with the Rays, then José Caballero was hit by a pitch to put two runners on. Yandy Díaz hit a grounder to shortstop that Bo Bichette couldn’t handle, loading the bases for Lowe.

Lowe fouled off the first pitch he saw, then took a slider to pull even in the count. Bassitt left a 90.5 mph cutter over the middle of the plate, and Lowe capitalized with an absolute no-doubter.

“I told him I was tagging up. I was tagging up the whole way,” Rortvedt said, laughing. “No, he launched it. I had a great view.”

So did Bassitt. The right-hander turned to briefly check the ball’s flight, then shook his head and raised his arms in obvious frustration.

“I just can’t make that mistake,” Bassitt said. “That was literally the game.”

With key left-handed hitters Josh Lowe and Jonathan Aranda injured to start the season, the Rays must hope that swing was only the start for Lowe. He reported to camp fully healthy after being set back the past two years by a stress reaction and inflammation in his back followed by a season-ending right kneecap fracture last year.

The last time he had a healthy season, he hit 39 homers and drove in 99 runs. As manager Kevin Cash put it at the start of Spring Training, “When he’s healthy, he gets MVP votes.”

“It's nice to have him in the lineup. If we can keep him in the lineup, we're going to get a lot of those swings,” Cash said Friday night. “He's got the track record of hitting a lot of home runs. He can certainly come up and get big ones like he did today.”

The Rays tacked on four more runs, including one created almost entirely by Jose Siri’s speed as he singled to center, stole second and third and scored on a grounder in the sixth. But Lowe’s slam was more than enough for Civale.

Acquired from Cleveland prior to last year’s Trade Deadline, Civale had an uneven 10-start introduction to Tampa Bay. His strikeout rate ticked up, but so did his ERA. After completing six innings just once with the Rays last year, he set out this spring to pitch deeper into games.

He did that in his season debut, allowing only four hits and a walk while striking out six. The lone mark against him came on a George Springer home run in the third inning. Calling his own game via PitchCom and working comfortably with Rortvedt, Civale used all six of his pitches, attacked the strike zone and kept Toronto’s lineup off balance as he cruised through six innings on 86 pitches.

“With what I throw, it’s not going to overpower anybody, per se,” Civale said. “Just trying to let one pitch take you to the next and use those to mix and match and let there be a little bit of confusion.”