Postgame: Turley learned the hard way about falling behind hitters

He didn't say it with Kyle Gibson's Midwestern accent, but Nik Turley sure sounded a lot like Gibson after Thursday's loss to the White Sox. Both pitchers are tall, both possess mid-90s fastballs, and both get in trouble when they can't throw first-pitch strikes.

"I feel like I was trying to be too fine. I was trying to hit the corner instead of just being aggressive," said Turley, virtually word-for-word as Gibson when he has a game where he's constantly pitching from behind. "I know the stuff's there. The stuff's always been there. I'm just going to work as hard as I can to get it back."

He'll have to do it in Rochester, N.Y., of course, having been optioned back to Class AAA after his third straight short-start loss in three tries. This time, the rookie lefthander lasted only eight batters before Paul Molitor had seen enough, and he fell behind six of them. No shock here: Five of those hitters, able to sit on a fastball in the zone, collected hits, two of them homers.

"I feel like today it was a lot to do with my mentality. There's no excuse. It's just I went out there and I was a little cautious instead of pitching my game," Turley said. "So, I started getting behind guys. I know if I get ahead and stay aggressive in the zone than I'll be all right."

It's a lot easier to say than to do, of course, and nobody knows it better than Gibson, who has been battling that fall-behind plague for most of his career. But Turley had other problems, too. He rarely threw his curveball — not at all to the first five batters, actually — which was one of the points the Twins had emphasized to him before the game.

And his changeup wasn't fooling anyone. "It was basically like a [batting practice] fastball. It was a 4- or 5-mph difference from my fastball instead of what you want. You want it to be around 10," Turley said. "My curveball's my best pitch, so I should have gone to it more. I regret not going to it."