CLEVELAND -- Jose Ramirez broke the deafening silence in the seventh inning of the Indians’ 2-0 victory in Game 1 of Wednesday’s doubleheader against the Rangers at Progressive Field.

The Indians had not scored a run in 15 consecutive innings, dating to the start of the Texas series on Monday, and the Tribe had been held hitless until the fifth frame of Wednesday's twin bill opener. But the scoreless pitchers' duel between Zach Plesac and Ariel Jurado received some offensive excitement when Ramirez blasted a 2-0 fastball down the middle of the plate into the right-field seats to score the Tribe’s first runs since the eighth inning of Sunday's win against the Angels.

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“It’s so good to see him hit,” Plesac said. “It seems like, more times than not, he’s hitting the ball hard, just sometimes at people. For him to come up with that big two-run homer that put us in the lead, it’s kind of like you felt the energy that our relievers were gonna come in and do the job.”

The homer extended Ramirez’s extra-base hit streak to five games, as the Indians third baseman has hit .333 with four doubles, one homer and three RBIs during that stretch. Since June 21, Ramirez has fallen into an offensive groove, hitting .322 with a 1.005 OPS over 37 contests.

“He’s been doing it for awhile now, which is really good,” Indians manager Terry Francona said. “On a day where we weren’t doing much, kind of a frustrating day, and he pops one out and we hold on for dear life.”

With the Indians planning for a bullpen game in Game 2, the club was hoping to save its relievers through the first nine innings of the afternoon. Following Plesac’s six scoreless innings of five-hit ball, Nick Goody tossed two scoreless frames (extending his scoreless streak to 12 consecutive frames) before closer Brad Hand picked up his 28th save of the year with a perfect ninth.

“I was trying to ride that game out as long as I could,” Plesac said. “I looked up and I was at 90-some pitches going into the sixth. So yeah, I could have been more efficient. I tried to throw a lot of strikes and I did -- but some foul balls, a couple deep counts. I just ran the pitch count up a little bit more than I wanted to, but Goody and Hand came in and were super efficient, so it was good effort, team effort.”