Daily Notes: A Brief Review of Kyle Gibson’s Debut Start

Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of the Daily Notes.

1. A Brief Review of Kyle Gibson’s Debut Start
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

A Brief Review of Kyle Gibson’s Debut Start
Introduction
As noted in these pages of late, Twins right-handed prospect and 22nd-overall pick in the 2009 draft Kyle Gibson made his major-league debut on Saturday. What follows is a brief review of same.

Gibson’s Results
Gibson was successful on Saturday both in terms of defense-independent pitching and actual run prevention. The debutant recorded a 5:0 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 6.0 innings against 26 total batters, inducing grounders on 11 of 20 batted-balls (55%). All told, he posted a 3.30 single-game xFIP — not dissimilar from the 3.00 single-game ERA he produced by allowing two earned runs (box).

Gibson’s Pitches
As the PITCHf/x chart below (featuring speed and horizontal movement) reveals, Gibson threw three-plus pitches on Tuesday — some combination of four- and two-seam fastballs, it seems, in the low-90s; a slider at around 82-86 mph; and a changeup at about 84-86 mph.

Gibson’s Slider
Here’s footage from the second inning of Gibson striking out talented Kansas City catcher Salvador Perez on a slider:

That Same Slider, But Slower
Here’s footage of the same exact pitch, except at about two-thirds the speed:

Still That Slider, But More Different
Here’s continued footage of that same slider, except from a better camera angle this time:

Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
Los Angeles AL at Houston | 14:10 ET
C.J. Wilson (99.2 IP, 99 xFIP-, 1.3 WAR) faces Lucas Harrell (93.0 IP, 115 xFIP-, 0.1 WAR).

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Houston Radio, Maybe.

Today’s Complete Schedule
Here’s the complete schedule for all of today’s games, with our very proprietary watchability (NERD) scores for each one. Pitching probables and game times aggregated from MLB.com and RotoWire. The average NERD Game Score for today is 5.4.

Note: the following table is entirely sortable.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Andrew Cashner	SD	6	8	7	0	9	MIA	Nathan Eovaldi*	13:10
Gio Gonzalez	WAS	6	2	6	5	8	NYN	Zack Wheeler*	13:10
Trevor Cahill	AZ	5	3	5	7	5	ATL	Paul Maholm	13:35
Kyle Lohse	MIL	5	5	6	7	6	PIT	Charlie Morton*	13:35
Mark Buehrle	TOR	3	6	4	8	4	BOS	Ryan Dempster	13:35
Rick Porcello	DET	9	7	7	10	5	TB	Jer. Hellickson	13:40
C.J. Wilson	LAA	4	6	3	3	1	HOU	Lucas Harrell	14:10
Justin Masterson	CLE	8	8	8	2	10	CHA	Chris Sale	14:10
Ervin Santana	KC	8	5	5	2	3	MIN	Kevin Correia	14:10
Mat Latos	CIN	8	4	8	3	10	TEX	Yu Darvish	15:05
Jake Westbrook	STL	1	3	3	6	4	OAK	Tommy Milone	16:05
Edwin Jackson	CHN	5	5	3	4	0	SEA	Jer. Bonderman	16:10
Kyle Kendrick	PHI	3	1	4	2	6	LAN	Stephen Fife	16:10
Mad. Bumgarner	SF	7	6	7	9	7	COL	D. Pomeranz*	16:10
Hiroki Kuroda	NYA	4	4	5	9	4	BAL	Chris Tillman	20:05

To learn how Pitcher and Team NERD Scores are calculated, click here.
To learn how Game NERD Scores are calculated, click here.
* = Fewer than 20 IP, NERD at discretion of very handsome author.