- 2 days ago
Kyle Gibson joined The K&C Masterpiece and shared a humorous story behind his 2021 Opening Day start. He shared insights on the ABS challenge system and MLB dugout culture. He also analyzed the types of lineups pitchers dread facing, the current state of the game, and more.
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00:00right now joining us former texas rangers opening day starter and all-star it is kyle gibson good
00:08morning sir good morning guys how are you doing man i was doing really well until just a minute
00:14ago and i hope you're gonna go with me on this we always hear about how pitchers need things
00:19a certain way my co-host knows that i like things a certain way and he just took a bite
00:26out of the
00:27side of his string cheese and it's driving me insane i you know i i uh having four kids you
00:37see
00:37different um ways to eat different foods uh i've never understood eating the string cheese just
00:45taking bites off the tube i've always uh just understood that you string off pieces and you
00:51eat the strings i don't understand why you would eat it any other way i i you know what kyle
00:56i i understand what you're saying here um but because i know it irritates him i will cut the
01:03middle of a cake out and eat it that way you know like whatever it takes to see him kind
01:07of just
01:08start going oh and the hair on the back of his neck stand up so that's really the goal you
01:12know that's
01:12what friends are for i was you know what i was just about to ask you that because surely every
01:18year
01:19whether it was you whether it was some of your teammates there were people that you were close
01:23with and you went out of your way to try to agitate them because this is a really long season
01:29oh yeah no doubt i mean those are the ins and outs you know we're all co-workers just like
01:33you guys
01:34and uh you know we try to uh have fun and we try to when you find something that that
01:39irritates
01:40somebody you try to maybe pick the right time to get their goat a little bit and get after them
01:45and
01:45then uh also learning them you kind of figure out when you don't do that you know maybe you figure
01:51out
01:51hey he's having a tough day you just have a little bit of feel and understand when to push and
01:56when
01:56not to push good point my co-host is very good at that so that's uh that's a good answer
02:01so i i wanted
02:02to go back it's it's a fascinating uh juxtaposition for me where you got to start on opening day in
02:102021
02:11for the rangers prior to the game is there i mean i know we're supposed to say every game is
02:17the same
02:18but what's that feeling knowing not only is it opening day but you're going to have the ball in
02:23your hand yeah um every every game is not the same uh that was the first game i ever not
02:31made it out
02:31at the first inning so i appreciate let's let's relive in that um i'm gonna turn it around i promise
02:37i'm gonna turn it around the first time i didn't get out of the first inning but uh you know
02:41it's it's
02:41one of those things that um every game is not the same um you know i think you have probably
02:47a couple
02:48of them that that vary one of them being opening day excuse me maybe one of them being when you
02:55know that you have the chance to clinch in the playoffs um and then you know any playoff game
03:01obviously but opening day for starters is a special one because only one of the five gets to go
03:07and you know i think i was opening day uh only twice in my career and um it's just something
03:16that
03:16that doesn't come around that often for too many guys i know every team has one but you know that's
03:21only 20 percent of the rotation and you know a lot of teams find guys that you know start five
03:26six
03:26opening days in a row and nobody else ever has a chance so um it's something that most starting
03:31pitchers don't take lightly and it's something that you know especially if you know there's a
03:36competition for it you're really competing for that spot because you want to be that guy you know
03:41i i know we were kind of having some fun with it but like you said it was not a
03:44good outing were you
03:45pissed off after that because after that you went on an insane run you had an era of 0.82
03:52over your
03:53next five starts had a tremendous start made the all-star team like did you come out of that opening
03:58game start and you were like how did you react to that uh funny story um probably not where you
04:06guys think this is going but you're i think you're gonna like this so uh opening day kind of fell
04:12on
04:12an awkward day of the week i believe that year i don't remember if it was a wednesday or thursday
04:16it probably was a thursday and we had a couple young guys asking uh every team does their pay
04:21structure different so this is gonna be a long story hopefully we don't run through the next segment
04:25all right we got time uh so every every team does pay structure different and some of the young guys
04:31were wondering hey do we get paid every other friday or is it twice a month because they wanted
04:37to know if that first friday was payday so i actually asked um our travel secretary i was like
04:43hey uh josh shelton he's still there by the way i hope shelty hears this he's gonna love this uh
04:48i said
04:49hey shelty uh some of the guys are wondering is payday this friday or next friday and he
04:55goes um i can't remember exactly but he's like it's gonna be payday this friday unless you don't
05:02make it out of the first inning the first day and then you're gonna have to skip this friday
05:06oh then that start happens but i think i responded to him with don't worry i don't think i've ever
05:14not made it out of the first inning so i i definitely piled on uh when i saw him uh
05:20because
05:20he's kind of in and out of the locker room sometimes he did not want to say hello to me
05:24after that start he was he was extremely um careful with saying hello and then when i gave him the
05:31smile and kind of like the nod of hey shelter this is not your fault and i'm okay because i
05:35don't think
05:36you jinxed it uh you know he was very apologetic but just uh you know what it was one of
05:41those days
05:42were like it didn't matter what i did um it just i threw up every pitch i could the the
05:47ground balls
05:48went through the infield they hit everything hard and really a team that i faced a lot you know i
05:52knew
05:52that team really well um and i don't know if it was just jitters and nerves or whatever but you
05:57know
05:57the pitches weren't going where i wanted them and um like you said thankfully uh somebody texted me
06:03after my next start and said that i think i had the the largest era drop in history from one
06:07start to
06:08the next so uh you know every now and then you got to start at the bottom and build your
06:12way up
06:13well your era after that first game was 135 so that's not great that's not great no it's uh it's
06:21not uh but did you still get paid that friday i yeah i think shelby made sure that i i
06:28was uh not
06:29left off the payroll that friday so i i appreciate that you're right that did not go in the direction
06:35that i expected it and that is freaking tremendous oh man yeah i you know he had my co-host
06:42does have
06:43a propensity to bring stuff like this up though uh the first interview we did with mckenzie gore he
06:48brought up that uh he gave up one run in high school mckenzie gore pointed out that was in the
06:52state championship and they lost the state championship by one run so pause so pause
07:01along with that one third of an inning uh we were sitting in the locker room probably like
07:05two months later and i was still kind of in the middle of that good run and i was sitting
07:10there
07:10with ian kennedy one of my just really good friends as we got to know each other and and they
07:14put up
07:15stats of like you know five of the pitchers in the first half and i was one of them and
07:19it said like
07:20you know uh 71 in a third innings or something and uh ian goes gibby i don't remember you ever
07:28being pulled out of the middle of the day what is it and he stops himself he goes oh
07:32open gate never mind i'm like come on are you kidding me i decided to check that one third of
07:39an inning hung with me the whole year so don't worry and i decided to check your era dropped 127
07:45.89
07:47after the second start so what that's a that's all that's pretty good i'll take that okay that is
07:53pretty good now it's we've been building up to this for a while but we're finally seeing at the
07:59major league level on a consistent basis whole new world with the abs challenge system given that it's
08:06been building for a while do you anticipate just pretty smooth sailing there or no uh i do think
08:14there's gonna be times where that system is you know down or struggling um i think it happened in
08:19the minor leagues every now and then you know it is technology and i think as we all know uh
08:24when
08:24you need technology the most uh it normally fails you so there's gonna be times where it's down um
08:29and it'll be interesting to see how they handle that because it's obviously going to inadvertently
08:33affect one team over the other um i still if i was still playing i would be fighting for each
08:41player
08:41to be in control of their own challenge and not the team having to share two challenges
08:48um a good example was from yesterday caballeros uses the challenge in the fourth inning and now
08:54for the next four or five innings nobody feels like they can use one and they showed on mlb there
09:00were six or seven pitches that would have easily been challenged um in my mind caballero should have
09:05lost his challenge and not be able to challenge the rest of the game and then each player is involved
09:11is in charge of how they know the strike zone um i just don't i don't i'm not in favor
09:16of rules
09:17that pit players against each other um and i think this one is going to cause some frustration
09:22and it's going to cause some rules to be made about hey you can't use it because you're over
09:26your last five or you know we can't use it in the first because then we need it in the
09:30sixth well
09:30what if you never need it in the sixth inning you know and i just think each player should have
09:35their
09:35own i actually agree with that it makes a lot of sense especially after we were at spring training
09:40watching the the catchers do their drills where they were trying to you know really understand what the
09:45strike zone is by looking at it over and over on the big board out there i kyle whenever we
09:50we get
09:51access whenever we get watch the games as fans we see those shots of the dugout and i'm presuming that
09:56evaldi's always talking to jack lighter about you know the strike zone and you know his pitches and i'm
10:02sure there's a lot more going on in that dugout than that but when when you guys are when you've
10:07been
10:07in the best dugouts the best teams that you've been on what is the the what is the mindset in
10:12that
10:13dugout is it all focused on what's on the field what what is that vibe oh man i you know
10:19what
10:20that's i uh if most of the situations can be mic'd up i think and it would be authentic right
10:26because
10:27a lot of times when you're mic'd up you kind of have to do things a little different so you
10:29know
10:30but uh man if we can have authentic microphone conversations just fly on the wall you guys would
10:36love it uh not on broadcast radio though we need to get some satellite radio going right
10:42no no it'd be fine actually i think you just would love how some of these conversations take
10:46deep dives or d or sharp left-hand turns i mean i would i'd be sitting in the minnesota dugout
10:52and
10:52trevor ploof would come up and he'd say hey uh it's my off day so uh which political topic are
10:58we going
10:58to talk about today and we sit there for seven innings and dive into politics or he'd you know he'd
11:03he'd
11:04have another uh deep conversation he wanted to go into until it was time for him to get ready for
11:08a
11:09pinch hit so um really i think there's definitely there's definitely a lot of baseball being talked
11:15uh a lot of a lot of questions being asked about you know especially when you have a situation like
11:21eovaldi and jack lighter right a lot of good conversations happen in there about baseball
11:25um but a lot of other conversations about hey uh where do our starts line up when we go to
11:32uh this
11:33next city uh i got an idea for golf you know there's a lot of that as well orange juice
11:40pulp or
11:41no pulp yeah like those guys yeah i mean we i sat there one time it was actually in texas
11:46i sat there
11:47and i had uh one guy fill out a lineup full of um heavy slug heavy swing and miss and
11:55then another
11:56guy fill out a lineup of not much slug not much swing and miss and then we asked the pitchers
12:01which
12:01lineup they'd rather face awesome what was i mean there's there's a lot of different conversations
12:06that happened what was the verdict on that one uh everybody it's even the hitting guy everybody
12:12wants slug right in your mind you want to have slug on your team and then when we got through
12:18the
12:19lineup and we're like oh man i really don't want to face a bunch of louisa rise and whit merrifields
12:24and no no offense to whit merrifield or luisa rise i like both those guys but man they are not
12:29fun
12:29at bats all the time and then you get to other guys that have heavy slugging high swing and miss
12:33sure you're going to give up your homers but you're going to get a lot of outs and just about
12:38every pitcher wanted to face the slugging lineup so um i'm not saying all of them did but it was
12:44it
12:44was probably not the verdict that some guys thought man that is fascinating we're talking with kyle
12:48gibson right here on 105.3 the fan do you get the sense or do you believe that a lot
12:54of players
12:54and maybe you were talking about this last year the potential that this could be the last full
13:00season we get for just a minute because i know everyone in baseball is at least kind of worried
13:06about the potential for work stoppage i you know what like i think uh i do i think there's a
13:14chance
13:14the next season is delayed sure i think there's a chance i think if everybody involved uh especially
13:21with this being a year at the wbc i think there's going to be a lot of momentum um going
13:26into the
13:27season i hope that you know good weather and teams playing well attendance keeps trending like it is
13:32i know there's a lot of confusion and and uncertainty around tv deals i get it um but there's only
13:39so many
13:40times that the owners owners and rob manfred can go around talking about how um how healthy and how
13:47strong the game is and then show up to cbas and want to change it and show up to cbas
13:52and talk about
13:53how oh man we're really struggling here really need you guys to you know give us this and give us
13:57that
13:57so we can make these changes like i just feel like if baseball's in a great spot why are we
14:03making such
14:04big changes why don't we tinker little things you know i understand they want a salary cap and and with
14:10that comes a salary floor i get it i don't know that we'll ever agree on what a fair floor
14:14is and a fair
14:15cap is i just i don't know that it'll ever happen and it'll take so much time to open everybody's
14:20books and to figure out which revenues to include i think it's almost a waste of time quite honestly
14:25because i don't know that's going to go anywhere instead why don't we figure out how to um shift
14:31around competitive balance dollars and then regulate how those dollars are used so the teams who are
14:38getting large chunks of competitive balance dollars are putting it directly on the field because that's
14:43what it's intended for um so i think if the conversation is around that then there'll be a
14:48full season and it's no problem if the owners are dead set on huge changes after they've talked about
14:54how good of a place this game is in then i think there's there's going to be an issue but
14:59um i am
15:00excited that i get to sit back uh on my couch and watch this develop in real time yeah and
15:07i'm not in
15:07the union meetings and i can just you know sit and watch it develop and and understand that i've been
15:12in these these meetings and been in these talks um and sometimes it's kind of wild what goes on
15:18man that was a great answer and this has just been a delightful discussion we appreciate your time and
15:23we would love to have you on again anytime yep sounds good guys appreciate it there you go
15:29kyle gibson right here on 105.3 the fan
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