Jackie Bradley Jr. and the Brewers hope better days lie ahead.

Bradley’s first hit in a Brewers uniform was his new team’s first home run of the season, a sixth-inning solo shot in Milwaukee’s 8-2 loss to the Twins on Sunday at American Family Field.

It was a solitary highlight in back-to-back losses for the Brewers and an offense which had a mostly quiet opening series outside of a dramatic rally to steal one from the Twins on Opening Day. Before Bradley went deep against Twins reliever Cody Stashak leading off the sixth Sunday, Milwaukee had just one earned run and two extra-base hits in 24 innings of baseball.

“They’re a really good staff. They’re a really complete ball team if you look at them from top to bottom, in every aspect of the game,” Brewers starter Adrian Houser said. “They were pitching pretty well, but I think we’ll bounce out of it, get through it and get going.”

“They pitched really well; you’ve got to give them credit,” Bradley said. “They executed a game plan, and we feel like we didn’t execute our game plan. We’ll have to make an adjustment and go from there. Every starter won’t do that to us.”

Though he was signed largely for his outfield defense, Bradley might also provide a boost for an offense seeking to be more contact-oriented after setting dubious records for the lowest batting average and highest strikeout rate in franchise history during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.

The Brewers struck out 36 times in the series, and there wasn’t much hard contact even when they managed to connect. Milwaukee put just 13 hard-hit balls in play in the losses Saturday and Sunday, according to Statcast. When the Brewers assembled their biggest threat by loading the bases in the fifth inning Sunday, it came from a Kolten Wong walk and singles from pinch-hitter Billy McKinney and left fielder Christian Yelich that registered exit velocities of 68.5 and 85 mph, respectively.

The threat ended quickly on an Avisaíl García strikeout.

“We have to do better against starting pitchers,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. “When the starter leaves a game and you're trailing, they're going to be able to line up their bullpen the way that they want it. That's not a formula for success. We have to put some more pressure on [starting pitchers] and score more runs earlier in games.”

The opening series didn’t provide much faith that the Brewers’ hitting woes are behind them. However, they believe offseason acquisitions like Bradley will speed up the process.

Bradley had to race to Opening Day with Milwaukee after signing early in Spring Training, then missed time in the final full week of camp with a sore right wrist. He connected the setback to a previously unreported surgery for a ganglion cyst in his wrist two days after the end of the 2020 season, and was able to get back in the Brewers’ lineup during their final weekend in Arizona to log some at-bats.

He didn’t start Opening Day -- due to Counsell wanting to rotate Bradley, García and Lorenzo Cain in the outfield -- but was in the lineup for Game 2 of the regular season as the right fielder before making his first Brewers start in center on Sunday. Bradley won an American League Gold Glove Award as Boston’s center fielder in 2018.

Bradley’s home run didn’t provide the spark the Brewers were seeking, as they produced just one more baserunner over the last four innings.

Still, Milwaukee thinks Bradley -- who had career-bests in batting average (.283) and strikeout rate (22.1 percent) in 2020 -- can help start the contact turnaround, and his first hit and home run of the season could be a sign of good things to come.

“I think we’re going to be a team that gets the job done. This is definitely no time to panic or anything like that,” Bradley said. “This team is going to be a lot of fun to watch, to play on. We definitely cannot let this get in our heads. It’s the first series; we’re glad to get it out of the way. As the season goes on, we’ll find out who we are as a team and will get going.”