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Minnesota Twins Daily Clips Friday, May 5, 2017 Kyle Gibson demoted to Class AAA after Twins clipped by Oakland 8-5. Star Tribune (Miller) p. 1 Souhan: Gibson's latest failure again highlights Berrios' importance. Star Tribune (Souhan) p. 2 Miguel Sano's rough day for Twins ends with dramatic poof. Star Tribune (Miller) p. 3 Twins pull Byron Buxton from game following multiple collisions with wall. Star Tribune (Miller) p. 4 Twins-Boston series preview. Star Tribune (Miller) p. 5 What in the world has happened to Twins pitcher Kyle Gibson? Star Tribune (Rand) p. 6 If MLB's Rob Manfred wants to shorten games, Twins are his nemesis. Star Tribune (Rand) p. 6 Brian Murphy: Gibson was on the clock before latest meltdown cost him job in Twins rotation. Pioneer Press (Murphy) p. 7 Twins’ blockbuster ending never materializes in 8-5 loss to A’s. Pioneer Press (Shipley) p. 8 Twins’ Byron Buxton ‘banged up’ after three outfield collisions Thursday. Pioneer Press (Shipley) p. 9 Buxton exits game for precautionary reasons. MLB (Bollinger) p. 10 Gibson optioned to Triple-A Rochester. MLB (Bollinger) p. 11 Twins show resiliency, but late rally falls short. MLB (Bollinger & Lee) p. 11 Hughes set to take on Red Sox in opener. MLB (Bollinger) p. 12 Twins turning to Tepesch as fifth starter. MLB (Bollinger) p. 13 Wetmore’s 5 thoughts: Green light, last straw for Gibson, Buxton’s misplay and crashes. ESPN 1500 (Wetmore) p. 13 Kyle Gibson being sent down is part of Twins’ ongoing rotation shake-up. ESPN 1500 (Wetmore) p. 15 Kyle Gibson optioned to the minors, tasked with throwing more strikes. ESPN 1500 (Wetmore) p. 17 Radio: Twins CBO Derek Falvey on how he thinks about finding the best pitching. ESPN 1500 (Wetmore) p. 18 Byron Buxton leaves Thursday’s game after a hard crash into the wall. ESPN 1500 (Wetmore) p. 18 Twins’ Buxton passes initial concussion test after being pulled from game. Associated Press p. 19 A center-field fix for the Nats? It's time to make these trades. ESPN (Shoenfield) p. 19 How the 1st-place Minnesota Twins can stay there. Yahoo! Sports (Brisbee) p. 19 Twins Option Kyle Gibson. MLB Trade Rumors (Adams) p. 21 Kyle Gibson demoted to Class AAA after Twins clipped by Oakland 8-5 Phil Miller | Star Tribune | May 5, 2017 The Twins are utilizing Rochester’s staff on Saturday for a new fifth starter. While they’re at it, they will need a fourth starter, too. Kyle Gibson, a fixture in the Twins rotation since his 2013 debut, pitched four more chaotic innings in a substandard season Thursday and provoked the team into taking action. His next start will be for the Class AAA Red Wings, he learned after an 8-5 loss to Oakland, and a current minor leaguer will take his spot. “It’s not working. [He’s] putting us in a bad spot more times than not,” Twins manager Paul Molitor said after breaking the news to the 29-year- old that he was being optioned out. “I still have faith in him, but we need to give him an opportunity to work things out.” The Twins did that, of course, for the first month of the season, but the righthander’s frequent flops, summed up by his 8.20 ERA, became too much for them to endure. Fired up about a breakthrough year after adopting a new workout program and altering his throwing angle, Gibson was a disappointment from the start, never lasting six innings in any of his six starts, and never giving up fewer than three runs. Thursday, as the Twins tried to solidify their surprising-but-temporary hold on first place in the AL Central, Gibson gave up eight hits and three walks in only four innings, all fraught with A’s threats. While Gibson didn’t give up a home run for the first time all season, three balls ricocheted off outfield walls. “It was just too much turmoil,” Molitor said. “Those things aren’t easy to do, to tell a guy you have a lot of respect for, but I think it’s going to be best for him in the long run.” In the short term, though, the Twins will likely call up a reliever Friday for this weekend, especially with Nick Tepesch, who gave up only three runs in three starts for Rochester last month, making his Twins debut on Saturday against Boston. If Tepesch were given another start next week, the Twins wouldn’t need to fill Gibson’s spot in the rotation until May 14. Gibson, meanwhile, will head to upstate New York to work on getting ahead in counts, trusting his sinker and setting up hitters. “I completely understand where they’re coming from. I understand they’ve got to make a change and I’ve got things that I need to work on,” he said. “It’s a whole lot easier to work on those in Triple-A than it is here when you’re trying to win games.” Gibson wasn’t the only Twins pitcher having trouble Thursday, a fact that ultimately cost them their first three-game sweep of the A’s in five years. Tyler Duffey gave up a run on an infield hit, two walks and a sacrifice fly; Craig Breslow gave up a solo home run to Ryon Healy; and Ryan Pressly gave up two runs on Vogt’s bases-loaded double. The Twins countered by continuing their homestand homer habit, blasting three more to give them a total of 10 in the series. Eddie Rosario and Danny Santana cracked solo homers in the second inning, and Eduardo Escobar added a two-run shot in the eigh••th. The Twins even loaded the bases without a hit in the ninth inning against A’s closer Santiago Casilla, bringing Miguel Sano up with fantasies of his first career walk-off homer animating the announced crowd of 19,247. But Sano took a big cut at a 3-0 pitch and fouled it off, took a weaker one at an inside fastball and fouled it again, then got fooled on a curveball, his check swing enough to ring up his fourth whiff of the game. All the Twins could do was move on, or in Gibson’s case, move out. “I’m not going down for a confidence boost,” Gibson said stoically. “I’ve got things to work on.” Souhan: Gibson's latest failure again highlights Berrios' importance Jim Souhan | Star Tribune | May 5, 2017 On Opening Day, what you heard at Target Field was that for the Twins to have a chance this season Kyle Gibson would have to produce. On May 4, the Twins decided that for them to have a chance this season Kyle Gibson would have to leave. The same Twins who lost 103 games in 2016 started a game in May 2017 in first place in the American League Central, then watched Gibson deflate a ballpark filled with a nervous form of optimism. Almost eight years after the Twins chose him with a first-round draft pick, Gibson pitched his way back to the minors. He lasted four innings against a bad-hitting team, giving up four earned runs in the Twins’ 8-5 loss to Oakland at Target Field, then was demoted to Class AAA Rochester. In 2016, Gibson greased the Twins’ slide into oblivion. In 2017, he coated their ladder to relevance with WD-40. Since the start of the 2016 season, the Twins’ someday would-be ace has an ERA of 5.55. His ERA this season is 8.20. The confluence of Gibson’s failure and the team’s tentative success is a reminder of the hard work that remains for the new front office. The Twins are taking better at-bats, Miguel Sano looks like a star, Byron Buxton was displaying a pulse before smashing into the center-field fence Thursday and the position players look capable of supporting a winning team. But the pitching staff remains without a young star. Or a young standout. Or a young representative. Gibson is 29, long past such comforting words as “prospect” or “promising.” He has never won more than 13 games. In 104 career starts, he has a 32-42 record with a 4.76 ERA. 2 He isn’t going to Rochester to find what he lost. He is going to Rochester to find what he has rarely had. The Twins rotation has improved dramatically this season but remains fragile. Ervin Santana’s dominance might only set him up to be traded. Hector Santiago is 29 and more of a mid-rotation contributor than ace. Phil Hughes is trying to reinvent himself but might not have the stuff to survive repeat matchups with opponents. And Gibson has been one of baseball’s worst starting pitchers for more than a year. More telling than the Twins’ place in the standings is their choice of starters Saturday. They will hand the ball to Nick Tepesch, a 28-year-old with a 4.68 ERA in 223 big-league innings. Twins manager Paul Molitor said the Twins might call up a reliever to temporarily replace Gibson on the roster because the team has a day off Monday, but that doesn’t obscure what Gibson’s demotion means for the organization: Jose Berrios is more important than ever. Molitor also spoke highly of Adalberto Mejia, who impressed this spring and began the season as the Twins’ fifth starter, but Berrios will be the next young pitcher asked to rise to the top of the rotation, and Gibson’s collapse heightens the pressure on him to fulfill his promise.

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