Cleveland Indians: Josh Tomlin had his first solid start of 2017

Josh Tomlin needed a solid start and provided one to help his Cleveland Indians pick up a victory Tuesday night over the Minnesota Twins.

Tuesday night’s game wasn’t a must-win for Josh Tomlin, but he was treading lightly after two horrible starts to open the 2017 season.

The Cleveland Indians offense gave the pitcher a nice 3-0 lead before he even took the mound Tuesday night, but Tomlin responded by giving up two runs to the Minnesota Twins in the bottom of the first.

It appeared to be another short outing, but he surprisingly turned things around and had a great start.

Tomlin made it through six innings on only 85 pitches, allowing three earned runs. He only struck out two batters, yet he walked zero. He is not known as a strikeout pitcher, so that walk number becomes important as he cannot afford to hand out free passes given his style of pitching.

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The most important stat from his night is the three runs in six innings, as Tomlin couldn’t afford to waste a great outing from the offense. He left the game with a 9-3 lead, but it easily could have been 9-9 if Tomlin had been missing his spots the way he had in his first two starts.

I wrote yesterday about how Tomlin needed to have a solid start or risk being replaced by the surging Mike Clevinger, and last night’s performance was more than enough to keep his spot, for now.

Things can change after two more starts, but he showed enough to prove that he still has great pitching left in him, and that he is not a lost cause, as some fans made him out to be.

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It helps when the offense puts up a total of 11 runs in the game, including three in the top of the first inning, but a bad start from Tomlin could have caused batters to press at the plate, as they may have done in his first two starts. Instead, everyone was loose once Tomlin settled in and the result was another victory to get the team back to the .500 mark.