BALTIMORE _ They said the Twins' starting pitching would be better in 2018. They said Kyle Gibson was a changed man, a more confident pitcher.
But did anyone expect nothing but zeros?
One day after Jake Odorizzi impressed the Twins with six innings without a run in his Minnesota debut, Gibson went one better Saturday, pitching six innings without allowing even a hit. The Twins came up four outs short of the first combined no-hitter in franchise history, but still walked away with an encouraging 6-2 victory at Camden Yards.
Orioles second baseman Jonathan Schoop lined a two-out, first-pitch slider from Ryan Pressly to center field in the eighth inning, Baltimore's first hit of the night. Baltimore's Tim Beckham smacked a two-run homer off rookie left-hander Gabriel Moya in the ninth, preventing the earliest shutout in Twins history.
Miguel Sano, Jason Castro and Max Kepler all hit long home runs, Brian Dozier collected a pair of hits and scored three times, and Joe Mauer reached base three times and drove in a run. Most of that Minnesota offense came at the expense of Andrew Cashner, the veteran right-hander making his Orioles debut.
In a sense, this was Gibson's Twins debut, too, or at least a new chapter, he hopes, in a thus-far inconsistent career. Gibson's spring was encouraging _ he posted a 3.55 ERA, exactly the mark he managed over the final two months of 2017 _ but then again, that's been true before.
"It's kind of hard to gauge in spring training how that's going to carry over," Twins manager Paul Molitor said. "He has just learned over time that probably his better performances are when his fastball is his best weapon. Yes, he's got the change and the slider and the curve. But they seem to really feed off his ability to throw the fastball and have confidence with it."
Confidence is big, so often the missing ingredient for Gibson, Molitor believes.
"He's a real confident pitcher, but maybe he hasn't always been that way. Sometimes it's results-oriented and sometimes it's maybe just overthinking," Molitor said. "We all know that Kyle likes to really analyze, maybe to a fault, the best game-plan each and every day. You see him get off the mound once in a while and you see the smoke coming out (of his ears). He's trying to figure out what's the best pitch to throw in each situation, but sometimes you've just got to trust it and let it go."
Jake Odorizzi used a fastball-centric approach to six shutout innings on Saturday, Molitor noted, and "hopefully (Gibson) took some notes from that day."
He seemed to, even though his control was clearly off, whether affected by the chilly 50-degree March weather or his own season-opening nerves. Gibson walked five batters in six innings, though never more than one in an inning. Manny Machado walked twice, as did Trey Mancini, and Adam Jones drew a walk in Gibson's final inning.
The right-hander threw 102 pitches over six innings, only 56 of them strikes, so there was never any possibility that Molitor would allow him to try to become the first Twins pitcher since Francisco Liriano in 2011 to throw a nine-inning no-hitter.
Gibson struck out six, four of them with that fastball that mostly stayed around 91 mph.
Sano put the Twins in front by crushing a first-inning fastball from Cashner, and Castro blasted a 416-foot homer to center to lead off the third inning. Kepler hammered a Cashner curve into the seats in right-center in the fourth.
