Brandon Lowe ties Yandy Diaz for Rays franchise-record hitting streak

MINNEAPOLIS — Jason Bartlett had held the Rays franchise record with a 19-game hitting streak for 15 years — from 2009 until last June, when Yandy Diaz rapped hits in 20 straight games.

But Diaz’s solo reign barely lasted a year, as Brandon Lowe ripped a fifth-inning single on Saturday to match the 20-game mark, with a chance to break the record on Sunday.

Lowe wasn’t in the mood to talk about his accomplishment after the Rays’ 6-5 walkoff defeat by the Twins, their sixth loss in the last eight games.

“I’d much rather win,” said Lowe, who also extended his on-base streak to 23 games. “If we were winning and this is going, fantastic. But winning is a whole heck of a lot better.”

Rays manager Kevin Cash, who earlier Saturday noted the degree of difficulty in getting hits in that many straight games, offered his congratulations for Lowe getting to 20.

“That’s really impressive,” Cash said. “Very happy to see that. Hopefully, he can break it and continue breaking his own.”

Diaz said recently that he wasn’t concerned about Lowe surpassing him and hoped “he gets to, like, 50 games and he becomes the best hitter in MLB.”

Diaz had a tough day, as his 27-game on-base streak ended with an 0-for-4 (plus a sacrifice fly), and he was unable to make a play on the Twins’ game-winning bunt. He declined to talk to reporters.

Starter Drew Rasmussen said he looks forward to the interaction between the two veterans, who have adjacent lockers.

“They have a special relationship to begin with,” Rasmussen said. “But then on top of that, it would be great to see Brandon be the one that would beat Yandy’s record. You could just see the bickering that would go back and forth and just how they would tease each other and have fun with it.”

Ha-Seong Kim day to dayHa-Seong Kim made his season debut for the Rays on Friday after an extended rehab from right shoulder surgery in October. [ WILL VRAGOVIC | Tampa Bay Rays ]

The Rays should have a better sense by Sunday if shortstop Ha-Seong Kim is ready to return to action soon or will need to go back on the injured list due to discomfort in his right calf believed to be caused by a cramp.

Kim said after Saturday’s game he was “walking fine” and felt “much better” than Friday, when he was forced out of his Rays season debut after an extended rehab from right shoulder surgery in October.

“I think we’ll just have to take it day by day,” he said, via interpreter David Lee.

Kim said he had undergone a variety of treatments — “I think we’ve just tried everything possible” — and the team didn’t see the need to send him for imaging, which also is a good sign.

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“He came in a little sore,” Cash said. “We’ll see. It’s going to be day to day. … With our roster and the versatility, we should be OK. … But we’ll just see how treatment goes and go from there.”

Boyle on the way?

There have been two interesting developments that suggest hard-throwing Joe Boyle could be on his way from Triple A to join the Rays.

In his last outing, on June 29, Boyle was used in relief for the first time after making 14 starts for Durham (and one for the Rays on April 13), taking over for the third inning.

Then, Boyle was scratched from a scheduled start on Saturday for the Bulls.

Pitching Boyle in relief like that could be to prepare him to follow an opener in the majors or potentially to be paired with a certain starter.

Sunday starter Rasmussen, for example, is on a supposedly strict limit of 150 innings in his return from a third elbow surgery and already has thrown 87 ⅓.

If Boyle is called up, lefty Joe Rock would be a candidate to go back to Durham.

Inside Uceta’s struggles

Though Kevin Kelly took the loss Friday for giving up the walkoff homer to Harrison Bader, Edwin Uceta had a lot to do with it. He allowed three hits in the seventh, leading to the Twins erasing a 3-1 Tampa Bay lead.

After a dazzling 2024 with the Rays in which he posted a 1.51 ERA over 30 games, Uceta has been markedly inconsistent this season, with a 5.45 ERA.

His strikeouts are down, his walks are up, and he has allowed eight homers over 38 innings. Last year he gave up two in 41 ⅔.

“I would say the inconsistency of late is more batted ball luck,” pitching coach Kyle Snyder said Saturday morning. “He’s actually pitched pretty well in terms of the things that he’s in control of.”

Miscellany

Taj Bradley was pleased with his 5 ⅔-inning outing, especially allowing only one run in the second after loading the bases with no outs: “You always try to find the positive, and I think I had a lot of them.” … Bradley said repeated discussions with home plate umpire Nic Lentz had to do with him using a windup and also pitching out of the stretch. … Rocco Baldelli, a former Rays player and coach, won his 500th game as Twins manager and ranks fourth on the franchise list. … Junior Caminero turned 22 on Saturday. … Kim’s Rays debut was a big deal in his native Korea — journalist Jae Ho Kim took a red-eye flight to Minneapolis from San Francisco, where he was on assignment, to be at Friday’s game. … Bader’s homer off Kelly to start the ninth Friday marked the first time in 192 walkoff defeats over 28 seasons the Rays lost on the first pitch of an inning. The Rays were involved in one of the other two such walkoffs this season, when rookie Kameron Misner homered to end the season opener.

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