For starters: Rays recall Nate Lowe, place him in lefty-stacked starting lineup against Twins

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- The Rays will stack the top of their batting order with five left-handed hitters in today's 1:10 p.m. game against Twins right-hander starter Kyle Gibson, who is holding right-handed hitters to a .235 batting average.

Among those lefties will be Nate Lowe, who will be hitting fifth after being recalled from Triple-A Norfolk before the game. The Rays optioned left-handed reliever Adam Kolarek to Triple-A to make roster room for Lowe.

Tommy Pham (calf) and Avisail Garcia (hamstring) were out of the lineup on Saturday. Rays manager Kevin Cash said they'd both be available off the bench, but wants to avoid using them today. Pham said he expects to be back Sunday.

Lowe hit .257/.289/.314 in a nine-game stint with the Rays last month. Lowe said he spent his time in Durham making a few hitting adjustments and he hit .216/.333/.311 in 19 games since returning to Triple-A on May 10.

Kolarek allowed runs in four of his last seven outings with the Rays, posting a 9.00 ERA, allowing a .375 opponents batting average and seeing his season ERA balloon from 3.07 to 4.58. The lefty sidearmer is still holding left-handed hitters to a .154 average, but righties are hitting .390 off him.

Yonny Chirinos will start today for the Rays. In his last outing, he was pulled after five innings before allowing a hit after 69 pitches. Cash had Chirinos on a pitch count of 70, and Cash said Chirinos is now stretched out, so his workload could increase today.

Yandy Diaz will build at bats down in Port Charlotte, going from field to field in extended spring training. Catcher Michael Perez could do the same as soon as Sunday.

Emilio Pagan had a hardly discernible mark on his right cheek from where a batted ball ricocheted off his arm and off his face last night, but otherwise showed no effects.

Here are today's lineups:

Rays

Austin Meadows LF

Brandon Lowe 2B

Kevin Kiermaier CF

Ji-Man Choi DH

Nate Lowe 1B

Christian Arroyo 3B

Willy Adames SS

Travis d'Arnaud

Guillermo Heredia RF

Yonny Chirinos RHP

Twins

Max Kepler RF

Jorge Polanco DH

Marwin Gonzalez 1B

Miguel Sano 3B

Ehire Adrianza SS

Jonathan Schoop 2B

Jason Castro C

Byron Buxton CF

Kyle Gibson RHP