Nate Lowe said he faced Tampa Bay pitcher Josh Fleming “too many times to count” at the Rays’ alternate training site in 2020. They ate lunch together and were golfing buddies.
Now the Rangers’ first baseman, Lowe hit his fourth home run of the season Wednesday night against his former teammate, something that Fleming thought about even before Texas’ 5-1 victory at Tropicana Field.
"Coming into the day, I was like, ‘If anyone's going to get a hit or a home run, whatever it may be, it better not be him,’” Fleming said to reporters postgame. “And, sure enough, he was the one to take me deep. But you know, that's how it goes sometimes. I'm sure he might text me after the game saying something, but good piece of hitting."
Lowe said that familiarity definitely gave him an idea of how to attack Fleming at the plate. Fleming also admits that Lowe probably knew what was coming to him. Lowe went 2-for-4 on Wednesday -- 1-for-2 against Fleming.
“He's got elite stuff when he gets to his arm side,” Lowe said. “Then you’ve got to take advantage of it where you can make it happen on his mistakes. So I'll take it."
Manager Chris Woodward said during Spring Training that he felt Lowe never got a fair chance when he was in Tampa Bay. When asked if he thought this series may feel different for Lowe than others, Woodward said it absolutely did.
“[I think he’s got] a chip on his shoulder, and I think it's a good thing,” Woodward said. “If you play this game long enough, you're lucky to play with one team your whole career. That's pretty rare.
“So any time a team, you feel like maybe didn't give you that opportunity or you felt like you could have had a better opportunity and they didn't give it to them, of course you're going to want to beat them. It does mean a lot, and sometimes you put too much pressure on yourself, to be honest.”
Lowe, a 13th-round Draft choice of the Rays in 2016, said he tries to take his emotions out of the game, but he admitted that it is difficult sometimes to do so in a series like this. He said those emotions manifested poorly in the first game of the series, but he broke an 0-for-19 slump with a single on Tuesday in the second game of the four-game set.
“I'll take any success that I can have against whoever I can have it against,” Lowe said. “Over the last couple games, it was a slow stretch. I try to comp for it by ramping up and trying to hit the five-run home run, which is impossible. So I have to separate that and take care of what's in front of me.
“To be able to do it against a really solid staff like they got over there -- and my former team -- was really cool.”