Kyle Gibson Impresses Again, Minnesota Twins Blank the Blue Jays

Credit: Jesse Johnson-USA TODAY Sports

In a couple years, when people asked where were you when it appeared that Kyle Gibson became the ace of the Twins rotation, most of us won’t be able to say Target Field truthfully. Game one of the split doubleheader on Thursday saw the smallest crowd in Target Field history with only 20,507 going through the turnstiles.

That low attendance could be attributed to our next fun fact of the day: Thursday’s first game was the coldest game in Twins history. That would make you eat your ticket pretty darn fast.

To the game that happened on the field, it was a masterpiece by Kyle Gibson. Gibson pitched eight shutout innings and only allowed five base-runners all day (four hits and a walk). Gibson struck out four on the day. His beauty of an outing brought his season ERA to 0.93. That number again, a 0.93 ERA.

The Blue Jays got four hits on the day, but those hits were split evenly between two players: Colby Rasmus and Josh Thole. All four hits were singles.

Ex-Twin R.A. Dickey started the ball game for the Blue Jays and had quite the opposite outing of his counterpart. Dickey only lasted 4.1 innings and was on the hook for five of the Twins runs while also issuing four free passes.

The Twins scored all seven of their runs in the fifth and sixth innings. All runs were manufactured with combinations of singles, doubles and sac flies. It’s like the Twins of old!

Anthony Swarzak came into the ninth and pitched a perfect inning, striking out two Jays in the process.

Twins RBI: Trevor Plouffe 2, Jason Kubel, Josmil Pinto, Kurt Suzuki, Chris Colabello

Twins Extra-Base Hits: Pinto 2B, Colabello 2B, Pedro Florimon 2B

The Twins and the Blue Jays play again on Thursday night. First pitch at 6:10. TV is on FOX Sports North Plus.