Sunday Notes From Ft. Myers: Gibson Shines

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."