Daily Word: Gibbs Throwing Heat in Maine - AmericaEast.com

Daily Word: Gibbs Throwing Heat in Maine - AmericaEast.com

New for the 2011-2012 seasons, the America East Daily Word, a collaboration between AmericaEast.com and AExtra, will recap the previous day's games and on goings on our nine campuses and provide links to previews, recaps, features and exclusive coverage.

Joe Nathan, the former Stony Brook and current Texas Rangers pitcher, made news over the weekend. And it's not because of anything he did.

Rather, Jeff Gibbs, a right-handed flamethrower for Maine's baseball sqaud, had his fastball compared to the Minnesota Twins' all-time saves leader.

Gibbs' prowess on the hill led to a nice profile piece by the Canadian Baseball Network detailing the righty's path to pitching and his potential MLB draft stock. His coach, Steve Trimper, believes his stuff is Major League quality as he boasts a sometimes "ungodly" slider, a newly refined changeup and the ole 97 mph cheese.

"The draft is so unpredictable, but, if he stays on course, he has the potential to go in the first-to-fifth rounds," Trimper said of Gibbs in the article. "I've been in Division 1 baseball coming up on my 17th year and he's one of the best arms I've seen."

The article brings us back to Gibbs as a high school centerfielder who didn't want to pitch anymore because "[he] was getting hit quite a bit." So his dominant performance on the mound against Florida International in the NCAA regionals last year makes total sense.

Gibbs posted an 8-5 record to go along with a 3.42 ERA as a sophomore last season but also pitched in some of the Black Bears' biggest games.

You can read the rest of Chris Toman's article, here.

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