AL WILD CARD SERIES: RANGERS VS RAYS

October 3, 2023

Nathaniel Lowe

Tropicana Field

Texas Rangers

Pregame Press Conference

Q. How is your mom doing?

NATHANIEL LOWE: I mean, it hurts her that she's not going to be here today. She's entering her third week of chemo and radiation, and she's got brain cancer, so yeah, it's a lot to go through, and yeah. It's a pretty heavy toll. I know Josh has done a pretty good job of putting it aside and compartmentalizing it and performing, but it's something that we're all learning to deal with and go forward with.

Yeah, it's a challenge.

Q. Is your dad David going to come today? Is he staying back with your mom?

NATHANIEL LOWE: I don't know. I don't think he's coming today. I think he's staying with her. Today is my grandma's birthday, so she's there with her, too. Yeah, taking her to treatment. Yeah, they'll be yelling loud from Claremont. Maybe we'll be able to hear them over here.

I think I've got some other family that's going to show up. Last I checked there was a good number at the last series, and they should be coming out pretty strong today.

Q. Did you get a chance to catch up with Josh at all before now? Or do you not want to?

NATHANIEL LOWE: We can be friends on Saturday. (Laughter).

Side story, yes, Josh actually asked me to play in a golf tournament with him and Eflin and Diekman, so I told him if they strike me out or hit me with a pitch, I'm not playing.

You know, it'll be good. It'll be good competition. It'll be a fun series.

Q. When is the golf tournament?

NATHANIEL LOWE: Way after the World Series.

Q. More on the baseball side, how are you and the team handling coming into this series? Obviously it's been a long last week, getting here, wiping the slate clean. How is the vibe?

NATHANIEL LOWE: I don't know, we kind of accepted that we're the Rangers and we've kind of got to do it the hard way. If we've got to win from the Wild Card division all the way to the World Series, that's what we signed up for. We're her to play more baseball and winning baseball so we're in a good spot, competed down the stretch and we saw good elite pitching in Seattle.

So yeah, I'm not going to say it's the same as Tampa because Tampa is always different, but it's been a pretty solid competition down the stretch, and we're looking forward to jumping on them today.

Q. Knowing what you all have gone through the past week, has that been a playoff-type atmosphere? Anything that you can take from the feelings there into this Wild Card series?

NATHANIEL LOWE: Oh, yeah, because we needed to put Seattle away at home. We did a really good job of that. The crowd was behind us and the energy was up, and we did a good job taking those three games, and then went to LA, and we didn't come away with as many wins as we wanted there. And then obviously it took us two days of losing in Seattle until we finally finished the regular season off with a postseason berth, and then had to go through one of the top-end American League arms, if not one of the best arms in the league, on Sunday in a seemingly meaningless game for them because they're not going to the postseason.

So we've just kind of been through a lot. But we're in a good spot, we're ready to compete, and it's going to be an exciting series.

Q. The last month has been a lot, right? You guys have been up and you've been down and we've spent a lot of time asking you about what's going on, what's going wrong. Have you had to take a step back and say, wait a minute, yes, expectations changed on this team over the course of this year because of where it started out, but we've accomplished something? Have you had to take a moment to step back and say, we are good, we do believe that we belong here, this is a good team?

NATHANIEL LOWE: Honestly, no, because we've believed we're a good team through and through, through the cold stretch and through the hot stretches. It never felt like there was really a doubt with this team.

The stretch earlier, I guess late August or early September where we lost a bunch in a row was pretty rough, but there was never a point in that stretch where we doubted the group that we've got together. We're going to pitch, we're going to defend, and we're going to hit. So we've got a good thing going. We're really excited to get into the postseason.

It feels like the organization deserves a shot, and we've got the right pieces in place. To be able to be a part of a team that has gone through two years of getting our teeth beat in my first two years in this uniform and now to a 90-win team is a pretty cool feeling.

I don't think at this point or any point this year we've really kind of looked at ourselves and gone, well, what are we doing. I think we've believed we're going to win from the first pitch until the last out is made.

Q. What does Adolis García meant to you guys as a player and a teammate?

NATHANIEL LOWE: El Bombi, man. El Bombi is special. For him to turn out and drive in 100 plus again and hit 30 plus homers again, it's not really a surprise to anybody in house. We get to see the show every day playing with him and see how hard he works and him perfecting his craft over and over. Through the ups and downs or the strikeouts or misses, we know there's going to be barrels of excitement.

And he plays a really good right field and he's always a force at the plate. He's a good teammate. He's funny. I wish his Spanish translated a little better to English because when he rags on the guys, he's really funny.

But yeah, Adolis is awesome.

Q. You mentioned the top pitching you faced in the last week and 10 days. How similar and different is Tyler Glasnow to face from what you faced with Seattle?

NATHANIEL LOWE: Well, like knowing Glas on a personal level and being his teammate, I've got to kind of look away from him early, because you realize what a guy he is when he's not pitching versus who he turns into when he's on the mound.

You've got to put that aside first off, and then you respect his stuff. He's got top-end stuff. He's going to play in front of a really rowdy home crowd and have a really solid defense behind him. I would say there are a couple comps, but Tyler is his own guy.

He's obviously going to come out and pound the zone and have elite stuff, so we need to do a good job of getting pitches to drive and make sure that we're ready to go from pitch one.