(Photo credit: David Richard-Imagn Images)

The Tampa Bay Rays will vie for a much-needed three-game series sweep on Sunday afternoon when they visit the Washington Nationals.

Tampa Bay is looking to gain ground in the American League wild-card race. The Rays on Monday will begin a stretch of seven games against teams ahead of them in the standings.

Tampa Bay rookie left-hander Ian Seymour (2-0, 3.18 ERA) will start on Sunday opposite Washington right-hander Brad Lord (4-7, 3.84).

Seymour, 26, will make his second career start after 12 relief appearances. He allowed one hit and one walk while striking out eight over five scoreless innings in a 9-0 victory over the Cleveland Guardians on Monday.

'I don't know if I could have written it up any better in terms of my command and execution,' Seymour said. 'I was pretty happy with that.'

Lord rejoined the Nationals' rotation in July and went 2-1 with a 3.45 ERA in his first six starts, with Washington going 5-1. He struggled last time out however, allowing seven runs (six earned) on eight hits over 4 1/3 innings in a 10-5 loss to the New York Yankees on Monday.

'Good hitters like that, they don't miss too many mistake pitches,' Lord said. 'In the fifth inning, I left a few too many pitches in the heart of the plate. They were able to make good contact and made me pay for it.'

Lord and Seymour have yet to face the respective opposition in their careers.

Josh Lowe homered twice and drove in four runs and Ryan Pepiot pitched five scoreless innings to pace the Rays to a 4-1 win over the Nationals on Saturday.

Lowe has hit safely in six of his last eight games, batting .323 (10-for-31) with seven runs.

'I think he needs to have a good month,' Rays manager Kevin Cash said. 'And I know he's going press on himself to do that. So it's going be there for him to make the most of the opportunities this last month. We'll see what happens.'

James Wood had an RBI single and a walk Saturday for the Nationals, who have lost seven games in a row while being outscored 43-16. Wood has hit safely in eight of his last 10 games and is batting .316 (12-for-38) with four doubles, a home run, four RBIs, six walks and two runs in that stretch.

Also on Saturday, the Nationals placed left-hander MacKenzie Gore on the 15-day injured list (retroactive to Wednesday) with inflammation in his pitching shoulder.

Gore is 1-5 with a 7.54 ERA since the mid-summer break. The 26-year-old was named to his first All-Star team in July after going 4-8 with a 3.02 ERA.

'It's something the way I felt my last start, we needed to get an MRI,' Gore said. 'Nothing crazy showed up like a significant injury. I didn't want to (go on the IL), but we kind of need to. I plan on being back as soon as I can. We just need to clean up a few things in there, and we should be all right.'

--Field Level Media