ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Only the Rays’ bats could have dug them out of that hole Friday night. Brandon Lowe hit a two-run, walk-off home run to lift his team to an 8-7 win over the White Sox in front of a crowd of 17,973 at Tropicana Field.
Harold Ramirez homered in the first inning, his fourth, extending the Rays’ home run streak to 20 straight games to start the season, tying the record set by the 2019 Mariners. Christian Bethancourt led off the bottom of the ninth with a home run off Reynaldo Lopez.
Yandy Diaz followed with a single, and then Lowe crushed his sixth off the season and the Rays’ major league-leading 45th.
The Rays needed the dramatic late offense to pick up their pitching.
With holes in the rotation left after Jeffrey Springs injured his elbow, Calvin Faucher was asked to “start” for the second time after 26 career appearances out of the bullpen. He could only get through two innings. Jalen Beeks only got through 2/3 of an inning.
Faucher retired the first four batters he faced before things fell apart.
He gave up a one-out single to Yasmani Grandal and a double to Jake Burger but coaxed a hard ground ball out of Oscar Colas. It probably would have been an out even after Diaz dropped it, if Faucher had gotten over to first base to receive the throw. Instead, Grandal scored and Faucher gave up an RBI single to Elvis Andrus and a two-out, RBI single to Andrew Benintendi.
After throwing 33 pitches in the second, Faucher was done, having allowed three earned runs on five hits. He struck out three and did not walk a batter.
Beeks came in to replace him and issued the first walk — and then four more — to start the third. Beeks walked in two runs and tied a team record with five walks against the team with the worst walk rate in the majors. He could not get out of the inning after striking out two.
Cooper Criswell came in and allowed the third run charged to Beeks to score on a wild pitch. He also gave up a home run to Eloy Jimenez in the fourth to put the White Sox up 7-4.
Criswell gave the Rays 2 2/3 innings, allowing just the one run. The bullpen settled down after that.
It had been the Rays that had taken advantage of walks early Friday night.
Michael Kopech issued back-to-back, one-out walks to Brandon Lowe and Randy Arozarena in the first. Josh Lowe drove them in with a sharp line drive to right field. He scored on Ramirez’s home run.
The Rays didn’t touch Kopech again until the bottom of the fourth. Again, it was Ramirez. This time he led off with a single and scored on Diaz’s two-out, two-strike single.
Kopech finished five innings having allowed five runs on six hits. He walked four and struck out nine.
