Jose Ramirez walks it off for Indians victory

Jose Ramirez hit his first career walk-off home run as the Cleveland Indians snapped a three game losing streak with a 5-3 victory.

It was a long time coming. Jose Ramirez finally hit his first career walk-off home run. This home run propelled the Indians to a 5-3 victory over the Chicago White Sox Wednesday night. Ramirez went 2-5 in the contest and both of his RBI’s came on the walk-off two-run blast. Perhaps this is the next step in his turnaround from a dreadful start.

Ramirez’ walk-off homer was the only extra-base hit for Cleveland. That means the other 11 hits for the Tribe were all singles. In addition to Ramirez’ two hits, Carlos Gonzalez, Jake Bauers, Leonys Martin and Tyler Naquin also had two hits each. The only two starters without a hit Wednesday were Jason Kipnis and Kevin Plawecki.

Cleveland’s other runs came in the fourth inning. Leonys Martin grounded into a fielder’s choice with Carlos Santana scoring on the play. Tyler Naquin would follow that up with a two-out two RBI single to temporarily give the Indians a 3-1 lead in the fourth. Chicago would answer with a two-run seventh inning which would chase Shane Bieber.

Shane Bieber went 6.1 innings, allowing three runs on eight hits while striking out six. After not being able to get out of the seventh inning Bieber left with a no-decision despite his good performance. Luckily for Cleveland Oliver Perez, Nick Wittgren and Brad Hand were able to shut down the White Sox offense for the remainder of the game. This trio only allowed one hit over the final 2.2 innings of the game.

The first two games of the series were far from good but this game may have busted the Indians out of their three game slump dating back to the end of series with Seattle. The Indians will look to split the series with a win Thursday afternoon at 1:10 P.M.