Thoughts on a 2-1 Rangers win

• Kyle Gibson pitched like a newt on Opening Day.
• (A newt?)
• He got better.
• The story of today is Kyle Gibson, who, after a disappointing 2020, had been getting good reviews all spring, having added a cutter and supposedly fixed the issues he was having last year. And then he went out on Opening Day and retired one batter. That was bad.
• But he got better. 6 shutout innings today, 6 hits, 1 walk and 8 Ks. And he needed only 82 pitches to do it. The only jam he got into was in the fifth, when a one out single-double-walk sequence loaded the bases. Gibson induced a 6-3 GIDP to get out of the inning, though, and that was that.
• I was surprised that Gibson only went 82 pitches…I’d have figured that Chris Woodward would at least let him pitch the seventh, before going to Matt Bush and Ian Kennedy for the eighth and ninth. Woodward went to Josh Sborz for the seventh, however, and Sborz rewarded him with three ground balls for a quick inning.

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https://www.lonestarball.com/2021/4/7/22372875/thoughts-on-a-2-1-rangers-win