Gibson named opening day starter
SARASOTA, Fla. — The Orioles have an opening day starter.
Veteran right-hander Kyle Gibson will start Baltimore’s first game March 30 against the Boston Red Sox, the Orioles announced Friday morning.
“I’m excited to announce that Kyle Gibson’s going to be our opening day starter,” manager Brandon Hyde said. “It was fun to break the news to him a few days ago. This is going to be his second one, and what a great honor and he’s earned every bit of it. I’m happy to have him, happy he’s going to be out there for opening day.”
While starting opening day wasn’t a goal of his coming into camp, Gibson said “it does mean a lot” to earn the opening nod.
“I’ve only been in uniform one time [during a game] my entire career on the first day of the season,” Gibson said. “So, it is a big deal. It’s fun to be on the field for that first game,”
The announcement is far from a surprise. Gibson, 35, entered spring training with more major league innings (1,504) than the
other 11 starting candidates combined. Hyde last week said one of his main criteria for choosing an opening day starter would be “experience.”
In Gibson, he’s got just that.
“If you look at our rotation, we have some guys that don’t have a whole lot of years, and
Kyle’s the obvious choice from a years standpoint, a veteran in the pitching staff and the rotation,” Hyde said. “But we kind of wanted to see what everybody looked like and not make any snap decisions, but I think as camp went along it was kind of pretty obvious.”
Another reason Gibson getting the first ball isn’t a surprise is based on the contract he was given this offseason. While it wasn’t the winter splash some had hoped for, the one-year, $10 million contract Gibson received is the largest free agent deal the organization has handed out since executive
vice president and general manager Mike Elias took over in November 2018.
While Gibson was the most likely candidate for the role before spring training, he solidified his standing as the rotation’s leader in camp. In 14 innings, Gibson hasn’t walked a batter and has allowed just 11 hits and two runs. He pitched five shutout innings against the Pittsburgh Pirates on Sunday.
Throughout spring training, Hyde said Gibson has been everything he thought he would be “and more” when the Orioles signed him in December.
“Heard great things, have some friends with the [Philadelphia] Phillies last year that said extremely positive things about him, and they were dead on,” Hyde said. “He’s a total class act, great leader in the clubhouse, one of the great leaders of our club. He’s a good starting pitcher, as well. It’s been fun to have him.”
After being named an All-Star in 2021 with the Texas Rangers, Gibson had a disappointing year in 2022 with the World Series runner-up Phillies. Gibson posted a 5.05 ERA and a 1.336 WHIP in 167 ⅔ innings and didn’t start during the team’s postseason run. However, his expected ERA, which accounts for the amount and quality of contact, was more than a half-run better. Philadelphia had one of the worst defenses in the majors last season with negative-33 defensive runs saved, according to FanGraphs.
“I remember when we faced him in Texas a couple years ago, he carved us up
in Texas,” Hyde said. “You saw the stuff, he’s been an All-Star before, take out September last year he had a good year. Nothing’s surprised me performance-wise.”
The opening day nod will be Gibson’s second, and he’s hoping it goes better than the first.
To kick off the Rangers’ 2021 campaign, Gibson allowed three walks, four hits and five runs while recording just one out against the Kansas City Royals. But he
then went on one of the best stretches of his career, with a 1.51 ERA and 6-0 record in his next 15 starts.
“Hopefully that first time that I’ve done it, you can get some of the extra nerves out,” Gibson said. “But I have a little bit of anxiety and nerves every start, so you figure out how to use that, and you figure out how to use that adrenaline in the right way. And hopefully that gives me a little bit of a learning curve to do a little bit better from there.”