Has Kyle Gibson turned a corner, or did he look good against a White Sox lineup that cant score runs? Its probably a little of both but it resulted in another Twins win over the White Sox . Gibson had his sinker working, of his 24 outs recorded 13 were ground ball outs, 2 by fly ball and 4 by strikeout. Perhaps the Nick Blackburn comparisons/ceiling projections are not that far off base. The Twins led 1-0 after 8, but Paul Molitor decided that was enough and sent Glen Perkins in for the 9th to get the save and preserve the shut out.
Jose Quintana had himself a nice game too, going 7 innings and giving up 1 run. The run was scored by the speedster Kennys Vargas. While on second, Vargas tagged up on a ball to medium deep CF and scampered home on a wild pitch. The Twins have run at will on center fielder Adam Eaton's arm. And really, he has shown no accuracy and his throws so I think that trend will continue.
The Twins will try to win another one Saturday. Game time is 1:10pm.
NOTES
- After a 1-6 start, the Twins are 10-6 and are only 1 game below .500
-Torii Hunter collected two hits. Its his 3rd game of 20 played where he has 2 or more hits.
-Brian Dozier did NOT score a run, breaking a 5 game run scoring streak (plating 8 times in those 5 games). Dozier has scored at least 1 run in nine of the last eleven games.
-This is the third time in Gibson's career he has recorded 24 outs. He has not pitched a complete game.
-This is the third team shutout for Twins pitching. It took until May 21 last year to reach that mark.
- Roster Moves: Twins will activate Ricky Nolasco & Brian Duensing & have optioned Tommy Milone & Caleb Thielbar to AAA.
In his last 10 innings, Gibson has 7 Ks and 1 walk. Prior to that, he had 3 Ks and 12 walks in 20 1/3 innings. Gibson has a higher ceiling than Blackburn because Gibson actually gets ground balls at a better than average rate. Blackburn was supposed to be a sinker baller but was average or worse most of the time. Gibson's breaking ball looked very good tonight. He was getting batters to chase it. Hopefully, he's figured something out to get his K rate up closer to average. He's been iffy with his control this year. 9 of his 13 walks came in his two losses. Both of those games he had 0 Ks.