Article: Sunday Notes From Ft. Myers: Gibson Shines

[Nick Nelson]

Sunday's exhibition contest between the Twins and Cardinals at Hammond Stadium ended with a (sorta) controversial play in which Eduardo Nunez, representing the winning run, was called out at home plate despite appearing to be safe, causing the game to end in a tie. Players and coaches expressed faux outrage in the clubhouse over what ultimately was a meaningless outcome.

 

The real story of the game, though, was Kyle Gibson.Making his third official start of the spring, Gibson delivered perhaps the best performance of any Twins pitcher thus far in Grapefruit League action, hurling four scoreless innings against an admittedly watered down traveling Cards lineup.

 

Of the 12 outs Gibson recorded, 11 came on either grounders or strikeouts -- exactly what we want to see from the lanky sinkerballer. After the outing, he expressed satisfaction with a couple of key pitches in his arsenal.

 

"The slider was about as good as it's been in any of my last three starts," Gibson said. "My change-up's been as I'd hope it would be against righties, so that's a pitch that's really showed up well for me."

 

His manager echoed the positive sentiments.

 

"His sinker was biting, off-speed good," Paul Molitor said. "He was good today."

 

Gibson's target was 60 pitches and that was conveniently exactly where he finished after four frames. In his next start, the plan is to move up to about 75.

 

* Gibson on notching four strikeouts after collecting only two total in his first two outings: "I'm not going to be mad if I get more swinging misses; then I don't have to answer the questions about why I don't get strikeouts. But it is what it is. As long as I'm executing down in the zone, the swings and misses will come. You can't get strikeouts unless you get to two strikes, and I think that was something I struggled with last year. The more 0-2 and 1-2 counts you see me in, the more I'm probably going to get strikeouts."

 

* The infield alignment behind Gibson on Sunday is likely to be the one that we see regularly once the season starts, with Joe Mauer at first, Brian Dozier at second, Danny Santana at short and Trevor Plouffe at third. Gibson gave them plenty of work in this game and they converted every chance, including a tremendous effort by Santana to retire Peter Bourjos on the game's first play.

 

The Cardinals lead-off hitter tapped a chopper between short and third, and Santana made an aggressive move to backhand it off a bounce, then quickly sent an off-balance one-hopper to Mauer at first to dispatch the speedy Bourjos.

 

"That play on Bourjos to start the game was, I mean, I don't know that anybody has the arm to make that play in the league," Gibson said. "That was pretty impressive for Santana."

 

Following that slick play, Gibson put a runner on base with a hit-by-pitch. He said Plouffe came over to him and instructed him to induce a 6-4-3 double play, adding "I'll take a 5-4-3 if you want to."

 

Naturally, that's exactly what happened. Plouffe to Dozier to Mauer. Inning over.

 

* Dozier has been locked in at the plate this spring. In his first at-bat on Sunday, he turned on a pitch and sent a scalding line drive toward left, though Cardinals third baseman Scott Moore jumped up and snagged it to rob a possible double.

 

In his next at-bat, Dozier was able to hit the ball over the head of Moore, and everybody else -- a sky-high rocket that sailed beyond the left field wall for a two-run homer.

 

In 14 at-bats this spring, Dozier has seven hits, including two home runs and a double.

 

* Molitor knows he wants Dozier and Mauer to hit second and third in the lineup... he's just not sure in what order.

 

"Dozier could fill that (No. 2 spot) well, mainly because he's a guy who despite hitting .240 last year his on-base percentage with 90 walks is good enough to do that role," the evidently stat-savvy rookie manager said, "but he's got the power to drive people in too."

 

"I know Joe's been working this year on trying to pull more balls through the three-hole (between first and second) with a guy on first base, which is kind of suited to a No. 2 hitter possibly. We'll see how it looks."

 

* Newly signed right-hander Tim Stauffer has really, really struggled through three Grapefruit League outings. He has allowed multiple runs each time out, totaling 12 (10 earned) on 16 hits in six innings of work while getting consistently barreled up by opposing lineups.

 

There's reason to worry about Stauffer's outlook, mainly because he put up mediocre numbers while playing in an extremely pitcher-friendly park in the National League prior to signing here, but let's not overreact to three exhibition appearances. Molitor noted that, like Joe Nathan, Stauffer has a history of flashing decreased velocity in early March and building up toward the start of the season.

 

With that said, it sounds as if any notion of Stauffer competing for a rotation spot is out the window. Molitor said that he and pitching coach Neil Allen would be meeting with the veteran hurler on Tuesday to reassess his role. He was never a realistic candidate to make the rotation anyway.

 

* The Twins announced their first round of cuts on Sunday, and Seth posted an article with the full list. Terry Ryan spoke with us about some of the more prominent prospects to get sent out.

 

On Byron Buxton: "He needs to go down and get some playing time. I think everybody's aware that, he got some time here and there, but we need to get him going. He needs regular playing time and four at-bats a day and center field everyday. But he is healthy and he is taking instruction well and he fared fine in the camp, but it's time for him to get some work in now."

 

On Jose Berrios: "I don't think there's any question that he performed and he did everything that you'd ever want a young kid to do… Very professional, he's a good man. He took it well. He's a confident kid but he's not arrogant, he's not conceited. But he has a plan, and the plan that he came into camp with, he followed it. He made a good showing here, there's no question he's one of our better guys, we all know that."

 

On Max Kepler: "He's made a lot of strides this year… mentally and physically. He's turned into a man. I thought he had one of the better camps of anybody in this camp to this point. Numbers aren't great but he got out there and put good at-bats together, he played well in right field, he played pretty good at first, and he showed that he's got some strength here to drive a baseball. He's kind of what we were envisioning when we signed him when he was about 16."

 

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[jorgenswest]

Great report Nick. Thanks.

[twinsnorth49]

Would love to see that kind of performance on a consistent basis from Gibson this year, he teased us with it a few times last year in between clunkers. Here's hoping he takes that next step and is able to show that form more regularly.  I think he will.

[highlander]

I love the direction the team is headed. Being a homer and drinking the Kool Aid I'm projecting this team to be in the thick of it in August!! That assumption is based on the rotation delivering.

[HitInAPinch]

That's good news on Gibson.  Strikeouts are sexy, but who cares if the hitters keep pounding the ball into the ground.  Plus, a sinkerball pitcher keeps infielders more alert.

 

IMHO, if we're talking about a lineup in the traditional sense, then I would not put either in a spot above #4.  From the reports I've been reading, Dozier is sounding more like a dead pull hitter.   Again "lineup in the traditional sense"  you want that #2 guy hitting the other way at times and has a lot less that an average of 120k's over the past 2 years.  Mauer is still "fast for a catcher".  With the potential of a lot of young hitters in the lineup, I think it would make more sense to have both offering some protection behind them.

[ashbury]

 

Sunday's exhibition contest between the Twins and Cardinals at Hammond Stadium ended with a (sorta) controversial play in which Eduardo Nunez, representing the winning run, was called out at home plate despite appearing to be safe

I was sitting in the upper area near home plate on the third base side, and to me the ball seemed to arrive while Nunez was still at least a couple of steps away. Was there a problem with how the tag was applied? I didn't even notice controversy, it seemed like everyone just walked off the field. Maybe I was guilty of making assumptions, since Nunez was trying to score on a base hit that wasn't deep at all; even Revere could have made that throw. _{^{(On two hops.)}}

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

Making his third official start of the spring, Gibson delivered perhaps the best performance of any Twins pitcher thus far in Grapefruit League action, hurling four scoreless innings against an admittedly watered down traveling Cards lineup.

Before Sunday, Gibson's "Opponent Quality" score at B-Ref was 8.2, just a hair above AAA level (8), and the lowest of our 5 starters so far this spring.  And it probably didn't go up Sunday -- only two guys from the top of St Louis' depth charts were in that lineup, one of them their worst hitting returning regular of 2014 (Wong).  And two more guys who were MLBers for all/most of 2014 but were weak hitting bench players (Bourjos and Cruz), arguably inflating Gibson's opponent quality score.

 

So yeah, spring training caveats in full effect!

[TRex]

 

Following that slick play, Gibson put a runner on base with a hit-by-pitch. He said Plouffe came over to him and instructed him to induce a 6-4-3 double play, adding "I'll take a 5-4-3 if you want to."

Awww... it looks like the 'Fun Bunch' is all grown up!

 

What's next... parting their hair on the right?