Game 102: Twins at Mariners

First Pitch: 3:10pm CDT

TV: FS-N

Radio: K-Twin, TIBN, BOB FM

Know Thine Enemy: Lookout Landing

Twins: Dozier (2B), Herrmann (C), Morneau (DH), Doumit (RF), Colabello (1B), Thomas (LF), Plouffe (3B), Hicks (CF), Florimon (SS)

Mariners: Miller (SS), Franklin (2B), Seager (3B), Morales (1B), Ibanez (DH), Saunders (LF), Chavez (RF), Ackley (CF), Blanco (C)

Erasmo Ramirez is about to make his third start of 2013 and his first ever start against the Twins. The 23-year old righty from Nicaragua hasn't had a good start to the season, primarily due to the pasting the Red Sox gave him on July 11. He offers a fastball around 93, a mid-80s slider, a changeup in the lower 80s, and something that FanGraphs likes to tab as a curveball that seems to have been thrown once.

Even looking at his minor league history, what Ramirez gives the Mariners is a live arm. Predictably, he'll throw a three-hit shutout today.

After a couple of rough outings, Gibson has allowed just a pair of earned runs in each of his last two starts. Right now, Gibson's biggest challenge seems to be stemming the tide on big innings. If he can do that, he'll have a good day. And maybe that sounds a bit standard as far as baseball "keys to the game" go, since yeah of course any pitcher can get better by avoiding crooked numbers, but I feel like it's prudent here.

Adjusting to how batters approach him and learning the process of missing bats will help Gibson's progress a good deal. The ability to strike batters out is there, but through five starts he's only retired 12% of them in that fashion. Let's see if he can up that number today.