The Minnesota Twins starter Kyle Gibson adds to the list of some great individual performances that the team has seen amongst their early season struggles.
The Minnesota Twins had to be patient with Kyle Gibson, but they are now receiving all the rewards of that patience. Gibson has gone from a demotion to Triple-A in the middle of 2017 to now a strong and reliable starter for the Twins in 2018.
As the 22nd overall pick in the first round of the 2009 MLB draft, there was a lot of hope attached to Gibson. He represented a player that as a college starting pitcher should be able to come in and somewhat quickly help fill the void left by the trade of ace Johan Santana just a little more than a year earlier.
Gibson would make his debut in 2013 and have a very good season full of promise in 2015. In 2015 he tossed 194.2 innings went 11-11 with a 3.84 ERA and a 6.7 K/9 rate. Gibson then followed 2015 up with two seasons of a disappointing and identical 5.07 ERA. Through the middle of 2017, Gibson’s performance was at a place that many of us fans were ready to see him go.
Then July 22, 2017, came and the results of a different Gibson started to come in. It was that win against the Detroit Tigers that began a stretch of 12 starts through the end of 2017 in which Gibson went 10-2 in 70.2 innings where he held a 3.57 ERA. Gibson’s overall ERA dropped from 6.08 down to 5.07.
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After his fifth straight quality start on Thursday afternoon, Gibson now leads the Twins with a 3.25 ERA for the season. Thursday wasn’t all smooth sailing as Gibson had to work to only allow two runs in his six innings of work. The game could have blown wide open a couple of times but he remained in control. The fourth and fifth innings showcased Gibson’s ability to get out of tough situations and not let things unravel on him.
In the fifth inning, Gibson faced the tough situation of the bases loaded and only one out. A situation that seemed certain to lead to more Red Sox runs and an increased hole to try and climb out of. Instead, Gibson was able to get a pop up from Rafael Devers and a groundout from Brock Holt to end the inning and keep his team in the game. Starting pitchers will always end up with runners on base on some point making Gibson’s ability to work through a couple sticky situations very encouraging.
It is that type of performance and Gibson’s new found ability to get strikeouts that has placed Gibson firmly in the conversation for Twins second-best starting pitcher in 2018. Gibson’s K/9 has jumped up to 8.8, a far jump from his 6.7 K/9 in 2015. He is also creating swing and misses at the highest rate in his career with a swinging strike percentage of 11.0%.
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If the Twins could score runs behind some of these strong performances from Gibson we may even be speaking more highly of the right-hander. We can add him to the list of individual performances that have been very encouraging to see this season. We now are able to enjoy the results of Gibson’s work on his approach and the same hope and excitement as when he was first drafted in the first round all those years ago.