Kyle Gibson threw six no-hit innings and the offense hit three home runs against starter Andrew Cashner as the Minnesota Twins grabbed their first win of the season on Saturday at Camden Yards, 6-2.
It wasn’t exactly smooth sailing for Gibson, who was lifted in the middle of his no-hit bid after fanning six batters, but walking five. His pitch count was at 102 (56 strikes), but Gibson was not displeased about manager Paul Molitor’s decision.
“(I have) no hard feelings,” Gibson told Fox Sports North’s Marney Gellner in a postgame interview. “If I want to go deeper into the game, I’ve got to not walk guys.”
The Twins got to within four outs of a no-hitter before Jonathan Schoop broke it up with a clean single up the middle off reliever Ryan Pressly, and within two outs of a shutout before Danny Valencia stroked a pinch-hit double into the left-field corner and came around to score on a home run by Tim Beckham against lefty Gabriel Moya.
Pressly had continued the no-hit bid with a perfect seventh inning prior to Schoop’s single in the eighth.
The Twins opened the scoring with two outs in the first, as Miguel Sano popped the sixth pitch he saw — a 93 mph two-seamer from Cashner — into the seats in left for his first home run of the year.
Jason Castro followed two innings later with a blast that just cleared the fence in dead center, and a Sano grounder to second drove home Brian Dozier for the third run of the game. The first three hitters reached in the third before Cashner settled down to get Eddie Rosario and Logan Morrison to strike out swinging.
Max Kepler drilled a 1-1 hanging curveball into the seats in right in the fourth, and Sano brought home another run when he grounded into a double play to give the Twins a 5-0 lead after five.
The Twins threatened but did not score in the sixth, as Orioles Rule 5 reliever Nestor Cortes Jr. made his big-league debut. The first three batters against Cortes reached on a walk, single and a walk, but the strike zone opened up as two questionable pitches were called strikes two and three on Byron Buxton before Castro grounded into an inning-ending 1-2-3 double play.
Cortes didn’t wriggle out of trouble for long, however, as Dozier looped a first-pitch curve into left for a double in the seventh, and came around to score when Joe Mauer’s grounder found its way past Schoop and into right field.
Moya got Trey Mancini to strike out swinging before the next three Orioles reached — Valencia doubled, Beckham homered and Anthony Santander walked. The rookie lefty then settled down, getting Chance Sisco to strike out swinging on a fastball and Chris Davis to lift a lazy fly to center.
Here’s what we saw from our vantage point
The final line of Gibson wasn’t as impressive as most no-hit bids, but he was solid
Gibson certainly struggled with his command, as he had a nearly 1:1 strike-to-ball ratio, but that he was still able to keep a potent offense at bay speaks to the idea that this could be a revitalized Gibson. When he missed, he missed frequently away from right-handed hitters. Most likely, that was him trying to be deceptive with his usages of two- and four-seam fastballs to execute different looks, keep Orioles batters off balance in the box and also to improve his deception.
The deception part worked, as ESPN.com has him for 17 swinging strikes in 102 pitches — a tremendous 16.7 percent rate. Brooks Baseball only has him with 14 swinging strikes — six curve, four changeup, three two-seam fastball and one on the slider — which is still a solid 13.7 percent. The AL average for starters last year was right around 10 percent.
What’s also positive was the improvement on his curveball, which he worked on last year but would at times lose the feel for. Six swinging strikes on seven swings in 18 pitches is an absurd whiff rate of 33.3 percent — obviously not sustainable, but certainly indicative of single-start dominance — and something that one might have expected more on his slider (19.7 percent career whiff rate) than the curve (13.1).
Broadening his horizons can only help Gibson.
Andrew Cashner fooled no one
Cashner’s had a big arm and trouble with consistency pretty much from the moment he set foot on the big-league mound, but the stuff was always so tantalizing that the San Diego Padres willingly traded first baseman Anthony Rizzo for him. Flash forward six years, and Cashner’s deal with the Orioles — two years, $16 million — was one of the more questionable ones handed out after the 31-year-old righty eked out a 3.40 ERA with the Rangers last year despite fanning just 4.6 batters per nine with a 3.5 BB/9 mark.
To Cashner’s credit, he fanned a batter per inning and according to ESPN.com had double-digit whiffs, but when the Twins made contact — and it was frequent — they peppered the ball pretty well. Six batted balls for the Twins against Cashner had exit velocities over 100 mph, and three more were over 95.
There’s a reason why Steamer thinks Cashner will post a 5.40 ERA this year and the signing, though modest, was universally panned.
Ryan Pressly looked nasty
The velocity wasn’t quite there for Pressly yet, but the breaking stuff looked absolutely lethal. Pressly averaged 93-94 mph on his fastball, but managed to get six swinging strikes on 30 pitches (20 percent) with all of them coming on the slider (four) and curve (two).
Strike three to Beckham for the second out in the seventh inning was an 85.5 mph curveball that wasn’t in the strike zone for even a millisecond, as Castro had to block the ball, run into fair territory to retrieve it and throw the runner out for a K-2-3.
Adding Fernando Rodney, Addison Reed and Zach Duke made this bullpen a lot stronger, but there’s plenty of room for improvement internally, too. Pressly might be the No. 1 candidate to make that jump.
If there’s one qualm about lineup construction, it’s this
The lineup is a bit lefty-heavy, which means Molitor has to get a little creative with his lineups to avoid setting up spots for a wipeout lefty — think Andrew Miller — to come in and mow guys down from the same side. With Rosario, Logan Morrison and Kepler all hitting from the left side in the middle to lower-middle part of the order, Molitor prefers to sprinkle in a switch-hitting option to keep things balanced. However, against two righty starters, that has meant Ehire Adrianza and Eduardo Escobar batting sixth ahead of Kepler and Buxton.
Buxton’s off to a slow start and still needs to earn his place higher in the order, but it’s just a little unusual to see Kepler hitting behind those guys against righties.
Career against RHP
- Adrianza – .217/.298/.302
- Escobar – .244/.296/.380
- Kepler – .263/.336/.481
Eddie Rosario preserved Gibson’s no-hit bid with a circus catch on his final out of the night
Every no-no seems to have that one play that could have gone either way, and this one was it for Gibson:
Strikes two and three to Buxton were, ah, questionable
With nobody out and the bases loaded, Cortes was in trouble with a first-pitch ball to Buxton. That was followed by a foul, and two very questionable strike calls. Castro followed with a double-play ball and the Twins had nothing to show for their strong start to the frame.
That’s what so disappointing about the 3-0 auto-strike calls or giving a pitcher a little more off the zone when he’s struggled. It didn’t come back to hurt the Twins, but it’s still asinine.
And it’s easy to say that you want Buxton to protect the plate, but if he swings and misses on that strike three, is that somehow better? Buxton needs to stay in the zone — even if it means getting rung up on a bad call. He can’t afford to expand the strike zone.
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Notes
- Baseball Reference had Gibson with 16 swinging strikes, his most in a start since getting 16 on Sept. 17 of last year. Only twice last year — also Aug. 22 against the White Sox with 17 — did Gibson reach that mark.
- For the second night in a row, the Twins got just one hit with runners in scoring position. The Twins are 2 for 17 in those situations so far this season.
- Gibson started just 12 of 23 batters with first-pitch strikes, yet was the only Twins pitcher on the night over 50 percent (Pressly 4 for 8, Moya 3 for 6).
- Former Twins shortstop Pedro Florimon pitched for the Phillies on Saturday night after manager Gabe Kapler had burnt through his relievers in a three-game stretch against the Braves. Florimon averaged — per Brooks — 87.8 mph on his heater (88.9 peak) and 82.8 on his changeup (86.6 peak), but got zero swinging strikes in his 18 pitches.
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