DUNEDIN, FLA. - On the last day of spring training in Florida, John Gibbons stands strong, confident and yet somehow alone in a position he didn’t expect to find himself in, the winner and suddenly new champion of almost all the important baseball decisions.
There is no lame duck beside his name. Gibbons may be nobody’s man on this Blue Jays team, having not been hired by general manager Ross Atkins or team president Mark Shapiro, but more than ever before it seems he is clearly his own man. And on Wednesday morning, when he announced that Roberto Osuna would again close games for the Jays, he could have said something else that wasn’t included.