There is rain in the forecast today, but people at the park are convinced we're going to get this game in. That means the Twins will get their chance to finish off their first winning road trip of the season in style.
They just have to solve White Sox lefthander Jose Quintana, who has won just once in his last six starts. But that's deceptive because Quintana has given up no more than two earned runs in his last five outings.
This is a rematch of the May first game at Target Field in which the Twins won 1-0. Quintana gave up one run over seven innings while Gibson tossed eight shutout innings.
Joe Mauer is batting .391 against Quintana and Torii Hunter is batting .385 off him. It kinda drops off after that, so this could be another grind-it-out game for the Twins.
Alexei Ramirez is 3-for-10 off Gibson. Conor Gillaspie is 3-for-7.
Many players take the second bus on for the afternoon getaway games, so it's interesting to see who shows up early. There were a handful of players in the clubhouse when I walked in, including Trevor Plouffe and Brian Dozier. Torii Hunter and Aaron Hicks were there too.
Talk turned to the tremendous catch Hicks made on Saturday in the eighth inning. Hunter joked that it wasn't quite as good as some of the catches he made in his heyday, and Hicks started digging into his iPad to look up Hunter highlights. It was pretty funny. They have a great relationship and Hicks is trying to absorb everything Hunter is telling.
Hunter has been on Hicks about separating offense from defense, which developing players struggle with sometimes.
