Lowe gets kick out of his 5-hit performance

First baseman Nathaniel Lowe was on fire on Tuesday night, going a career-best 5-for-5 in leading the Rangers to a 7-3 win over the Indians at Progressive Field.

"I’m liking the way this little stretch is going to go,” Lowe said. “Hopefully we are going to build on the success going forward. It’s a fun group. We have guys who want to win. The energy is going to feed off each other.”

It was Lowe, who finished a triple shy of the cycle, that had the energy on this night. He started doing damage in the first inning when he swung at a 1-2 pitch from right-hander Eli Morgan and hit a three-run homer over the right-center-field wall. It was Lowe’s 13th homer of the season and his first since hitting a pair on July 1 against the Athletics.

Lowe would go on to have his way against Morgan, with a single in the third and a double two innings later. In the seventh inning, Lowe picked up his fourth hit when he singled to right field off reliever Nick Wittgren, but he was left stranded.

After getting an infield single, Lowe scored on a three-run homer by DJ Peters to make it a four-run game. Never once did Lowe think about getting that triple for the cycle.

It would have been nice to get that across,” Lowe said. “I would take another homer. But any hit we can take, any production for the team is something we are happy with.”

Lowe’s success came for a reason. Manager Chris Woodward encouraged him to stop using the toe tap and start using the leg kick. The Rangers are hoping Lowe can hit the ball in the air more often.

“I’m proud of Nate,” Woodward said. “Nathaniel has worked really hard to clean up some things, make some changes. You could see the leg kick was different from his normal toe tap. I encouraged him to try different things. He is super talented. … It was a couple of minor adjustments that resulted in a 5-for-5 game.”

Lowe doesn’t care what his leg kick looks like. As long as the ball is bouncing for hits. In first year with the Rangers, Lowe is hitting .258 with 13 home runs and 58 RBIs, which ranks second on the team.

“As a whole, I have underperformed a lot, honestly” he said. “I’m not really happy with a lot of things that I’ve done the last couple of months. It’s part of the grunt process to becoming a complete player. Sometimes, you have to get punched a little bit and figure out where you are weak. To have things go the way they went and have some successes here and there, it’s just pieces that are coming together to help me to become a better player.”

Lowe and the Rangers did enough to help left-hander Taylor Hearn win his third game of the season. Hearn allowed three runs on five hits in five-plus innings. Two of those runs came on home runs.

In fact, Hearn called Lowe’s performance the best he ever saw in person.

“Just to see how he has been battling and how he has been hitting has been great. I’m happy he went 5-for-5, too. It helped us win a game. I’m really rooting for him,” Hearn said.