PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. -- Brandon Lowe was making his way around the Rays’ clubhouse at Charlotte Sports Park on Sunday morning, visiting the place he called his Spring Training home for a decade, when he ran into Shane McClanahan.
A few hours before they met on the field in the Rays’ 6-1 win over the Pirates on Sunday afternoon, McClanahan had a question for his friend and former teammate.
“He just kind of looked at me and was like, ‘Hey, man, where do you want it?’” Lowe recalled. “And pointed at my side.”
McClanahan did not, in fact, plunk Lowe with any pitches. But he did win both their matchups, getting Lowe to ground out in the first inning and striking him out on an ABS challenge in the fourth. The overturned call punctuated a spectacular start for McClanahan, who struck out seven and walked two over 3 2/3 hitless innings.
“I would never hit Brandon. It's way more fun to strike him out, especially on a challenge,” McClanahan said, grinning. “That makes my day.”
On the day Lowe came back to Charlotte Sports Park to say hello and goodbye to his former team, McClanahan continued his comeback from two seasons lost to frustrating injuries. The two-time American League All-Star left-hander continued to ramp up his workload and his velocity, throwing 55 pitches (33 strikes) on the day and averaging 94.8 mph on his fastball.
McClanahan generated 10 swinging strikes, including eight on the 13 swings the Pirates took against his changeup. Having been encouraged to throttle his intensity as he prepares for his first regular-season start since August 2023, McClanahan said he focused this past week on making better use of his lower half to improve his velocity, extension and stuff.
“Really encouraged,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “That changeup, I mean, I probably forgot how good it was. Just watching, it feels like there's a lot of times hitters know it's coming and they don't have an answer for it.”
Feeling good was the most important thing for McClanahan. But getting out Lowe? Twice?
Yeah, that was the reason he couldn’t stop smiling this time.
The two became teammates when McClanahan made his Major League debut during the 2020 postseason, and they were key figures for the Rays’ postseason teams from 2021-23. They remained close, still trading verbal jabs and jokes, as McClanahan spent ‘24 and ‘25 recovering from Tommy John surgery and a nerve issue in his left triceps.
Lowe was such a fixture in the Rays’ clubhouse that he was welcomed back in, even as a visiting player. He drove down from Bradenton on his own, dropped his equipment in the visitors’ clubhouse then, as he put it, “made a beeline” to Yandy Díaz’s locker.
“Just good to see everybody, actually have time to talk and catch up with some of the guys and get that official goodbye-and-move-on type of deal,” said Lowe, who was traded to Pittsburgh in December.
But yes, he was looking forward to competing against McClanahan for the first time, too.
“The fact that I had him as a teammate for five years -- the amount of crap that we talked back and forth about who would win the battle, it kind of comes a little bit to fruition,” Lowe said.
The answer, at least in this round of Spring Training, is McClanahan. But Lowe gave him a scare in their first meeting.
After McClanahan struck out the side in a dominant first inning, Lowe stepped to the plate and got a first-pitch, 94.7 mph fastball inside. Lowe turned on it and crushed a 107.8 mph foul ball way down the right-field line. Once again, McClanahan shook his head and smiled.
“I'm so glad,” McClanahan said afterward. “I told him I was going to give him a fastball, and it was up to him what he wanted to do with it. … When he pulled that one, I was like, 'Oh, no.'”
McClanahan got the best of him two pitches later, as Lowe smashed a 1-1 slider right to first baseman Jonathan Aranda for the first out of the inning. McClanahan went out of his way to say something -- “Some mean stuff,” he clarified -- to Lowe as he trotted back toward the dugout.
McClanahan cruised through the second, worked around a leadoff walk in the third and had one out with a runner on first when Lowe came back to the plate in the fourth inning. Lowe took four straight pitches to work a 2-2 count, then took a changeup at the top of the zone that was initially called a ball.
“He's little,” McClanahan said, “but that was a strike.”
McClanahan frantically tapped his cap, and catcher Hunter Feduccia touched his helmet. Sure enough, the challenge revealed that the offspeed pitch had just clipped the top of the zone. Strike three. Lowe was out, and McClanahan was elated as his outing came to an end.
“That felt good,” McClanahan said. “Challenge system? Love it. Love it, especially with him like that. And I'm going to get a nasty text message, I bet.”
All out of love, of course.
“Just a lot of appreciation for B. Lowe,” Cash said. “I think watching his former teammates react to him just shows how much he was respected while he was here.”