Cleveland Indians: Bradley Zimmer bounced back in his second career game

Cleveland Indians rookie Bradley Zimmer had a rough outing in his first career game, but bounced back on Wednesday with a few firsts.

Most Cleveland Indians fans in attendance at Progressive Field this afternoon went home unhappy. But not the Zimmer family.

Bradley Zimmer had family members in attendance for his MLB debut Tuesday night, but three strikeouts and no hits held off too much celebration.

That changed today when Zimmer not only picked up his first career hit, but followed it up with his first career home run.

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He finished with two of the team’s seven hits, and drove in two of the four runs scored by the Indians in the 7-4 loss.

The loss was frustrating, but it was nice to see Zimmer have himself a great game and get those pesky first hits out of the way. Getting into an early slump would have been a horrible way to start his career.

With the injuries to both Brandon Guyer and Abraham Almonte, Zimmer is not expected to head back to Columbus any time soon. In fact, performances like the one he had today may mean someone else is losing their roster spot.

The key for Zimmer will be to keep his strikeout total down. He now has four through his first two games, which is a pace he must bring down. Yet it is only two games, so it is a bit early to begin looking at the stat. Also, three of those came in his MLB debut, when he was likely pressing just a bit.

As for the rest of the team, today’s game was a bit of a dud. Josh Tomlin allowed six runs in 2.1 innings, putting the Indians in a 6-0 deficit that proved insurmountable against the talented Alex Cobb.

On offense, Zimmer was the only player with multiple hits on a day when Edwin Encarnacion went back to struggling at the plate. So it goes.

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The Indians have an off day Thursday before heading to Houston to take on the best team in baseball. While most of the team can use the day off to refocus, Zimmer can take the time to reflect on his big day and hopefully carry over that momentum into the weekend.