Gibbons shakes off nasty comebacker, gets win over Beloit

CEDAR RAPIDS - Sam Gibbons can describe the pitch pretty well. It's what happened after he threw it that's a little foggy.

You can't blame him for that.

'It was a fastball up in the zone,” the Cedar Rapids Kernels pitcher said, after beating Beloit, 3-0, Saturday night before 4,118 fans at Veterans Memorial Stadium. 'One that he hit pretty well.”

Gibbons could smile after saying that, but at the time, oh, it was not good. Beloit's Sandber Pimentel smoked a second-inning line drive that ticked off the pitcher's glove and smacked him in the middle of the chest.

Staggered, he had enough presence to somehow pick up the baseball and throw Pimentel out at first base.

'I was thinking ‘Where did it hit me?'” Gibbons said. 'I didn't really realize at first. It was kind of a big shock, I guess, more than anything.”

This was the worst-case scenario for a Kernels team that had to use its bullpen for 8 1/3 innings Friday night. Manager Jake Mauer said he would have summoned Luke Westphal, Sunday's starting pitcher, out of the stands had Gibbons not been able to continue.

Westphal was charting pitches behind home plate.

'Thank God it got more of his glove and not as much of his chest,” Mauer said. 'Because we would have really been scrambling tomorrow.”

Gibbons ended up giving his team six quality innings before turning it over to bullpen mates Yorman Landa and Jared Wilson. He got the win to go along with a huge red welt on his left pectoral muscle.

'We used a lot of guys last night. Coming in (with the bullpen) in the first inning is always pretty tough,” Gibbons said. 'It was definitely in the back of my mind that I've got to go six or seven inings and give my team a chance to win.”

The Kernels (58-42, 17-13) did, thanks to a pair of runs in the first and one in the second. Zack Larson and Tyler Kuresa had run-scoring hits in the first, with Sean Miller driving home Austin Diemer with a single up in the middle in the second.

The pitching took care of the rest, a night after allowing 13 runs. Ah, you've got to love baseball.

Gibbons, 21, signed with the parent Minnesota Twins in 2011, midway through his senior year of high school in Geelong, Australia. He joined the Kernels from extended spring training in late May and has gotten progressively better.

The right-hander has allowed just one earned run over 16 innings in his last three starts.

'I was pretty shaky the first month, trying to settle in and what not,” said Gibbons, who is 4-2 with a 3.72 earned run average. 'Since the all-star break, I feel like I've pitched pretty well and put my team in position to win the game.”

'He's attacking more people, I think,” Mauer said. 'He's able to get strike one a little more often. He's a little different pitcher, really anybody is, when they get strike one.”

Or perhaps it's all about the mustache Gibbons has grown in the last month. Even he admits it's kind of cheesy looking.

'I had to change something,” he said. 'It's pretty disgusting, but it's going to stay.”

The Kernels play Beloit again Sunday afternoon at 2:05 to close out the homestand. Before the game, it was announced catcher-infielder Brett Doe is rejoining the team from high-Class A Fort Myers.

He will make 25 active players for the club.

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