Rays tie World Series
Brandon Lowe’s two homers better than Dodgers’ three shots.
GAME 3 Friday, 7 p.m. Central, Globe Life Field, Arlington, Texas (Fox)
ARLINGTON, Texas — Brandon Lowe busted out early and Tampa Bay’s bullpen hung on late.
Lowe shook loose from his extended postseason slump with two opposite-field home runs, and Tampa Bay held off Los Angeles 6-4 on Wednesday night to square the World Series at 1-1.
“Yeah, those felt really good,” said Lowe, a 2019 AllStar who led the Rays with 14 home runs and 37 RBI this season. “It felt great to kind of get back and contribute to the team. You know, they’ve been doing so well for the past month — it felt really good to get back and actually start doing stuff again.”
Blake Snell struck out nine in 4 2/3 innings for the Rays and didn’t allow a hit until Chris Taylor’s two-run home run trimmed it to 5-2 in the fifth. The Dodgers threatened to complete a big comeback in the eighth, but Tampa Bay’s relievers held firm.
Lowe and Joey Wendle each drove in three runs for the Rays.
Nick Anderson got four outs for the win. Diego Castillo earned the save when he struck out Taylor, the only batter he faced.
Left-hander Aaron Loup also did a nice job, throwing a called third strike past Cody Bellinger with a runner on second to end the eighth before retiring the first two hitters in the ninth.
After an off day, Game 3 in the best-of-seven World Series matches two big-game pitchers starting on extra rest Friday night. Charlie Morton gets the ball for Tampa Bay against Walker Buehler.
Lowe hit an opposite-field home run to left-center in the first off Tony Gonsolin, putting the American League champion Rays ahead for the first time at this neutral-site World Series with their 27th home run of the postseason, matching a major-league record. The second baseman was hitting .107 this postseason.
“Sometimes guys, you’ve got to allow them to go through some tough patches, and he’s been in one,” Rays Manager Kevin Cash said. “He will go quiet for a little while, but he can get as hot as anybody in baseball.”
By the time he went deep again in the fifth — with a runner on against Dustin May, already the fourth Dodgers pitcher — it was 5-0.
Will Smith and Corey Seager also homered for the Dodgers. Seager’s home run in the eighth was his seventh home run and 16th RBI, extending the franchise records he had already set this postseason. Those are also the most home runs by a shortstop in any MLB postseason.
Snell walked Kike Hernandez with two outs in the fifth before Taylor, the No. 9 batter, homered on Snell’s 80th pitch. The Rays ace was out of the game two batters later, after Mookie Betts walked and Seager singled.
“He was outstanding,” Cash said. “The slider from my vantage looked like it was a really good weapon for him. He was awesome. Gave us everything that we needed.”
Anderson got out of the jam with a strikeout of Justin Turner.
The Dodgers knew it would be primarily a bullpen game using various arms, instead of bringing back Buehler on short rest after ace lefty Clayton Kershaw threw six strong innings in their 8-3 win Tuesday night in Game 1.
Four of the first five LA pitchers allowed runs, with Dylan Floro keeping a clean slate. The Dodgers were the first team to use four pitchers within the first four innings of a World Series game since the Oakland Athletics against Cincinnati in Game 3 of the 1990 World Series.
Gonsolin, the rookie righthander who started, allowed Lowe’s first home run and was done after 1 1/3 innings.
That was the shortest start in a World Series game since San Francisco’s Jake Peavy was done after giving up five runs in 1 1/3 innings in a 10-0 loss at
Kansas City in Game 6 of the 2014 World Series.
Snell threw only 10 pitches in a 1-2-3 first that included strikeouts of Betts and Turner. After 11 of his first 15 pitches in the second inning were balls, among two walks and a strikeout, the 2018 Al Cy Young Award winner retired the next 10 batters until the walk to Hernandez in the fifth.
The left-hander was attacking with breaking pitches in the strike zone, not his usual pattern, since the Dodgers don’t often chase. But Los Angeles didn’t get many bats on the ball against him. But less than a week after an aggressive hook by Cash to take Snell out of Game 6 of the ALCS after four innings, he still hasn’t completed six innings in a game since July 2019.
Smith homered for Los Angeles in the sixth off Anderson.
A bobble by Hernandez at second base proved costly, taking away a potential inning-ending double play in the fourth before the Dodgers changed pitchers again and gave up two runs.
With one out and Randy Arozarena at first, Ji-Man Choi hit a grounder to Hernandez, and by time the second baseman gathered the ball to get the force, Seager’s relay throw was late. Manuel Margot then greeted May, the third reliever, with a single before Wendle’s two-run double into the right-center gap for a 3-0 lead.