From the Locker Room: Lucas Giolito
CHICAGO — Lucas Giolito was suffering a win drought at home, with his last victory coming on June 19 of last year, vs. Minnesota. Though that may be concerning at face value, the confidence he showed today would not have indicated he'd been winless for so long.
Today, the ace brought the heat. Giolito's 13 strikeouts tied his career high; the last time he accomplished this was on August 19 of last year, vs. Oakland. His K/9 for today, is at 16.71. For the season: 11.68.
The only trouble the righthander seemed to run into was three singles to load the bases in the fourth inning, but he responded by dishing out three strikeouts.
"It’s all about trusting the pitches [James] McCann is calling for me," Giolito said postgame.
Today, Giolito was mostly a fastball pitcher, a departure from his usual fast-change combo, with the changeup carefully inserted and the slider sprinkled in.
That is, until the seventh, when a tiring Giolito was set up perfectly by his battery-mate McCann. McCann, sensing that Detroit hitters would be salivating over fastballs a tick more hittable than the first turn or two through the batting order, instead called for changeups. Nine straight changeups.
In addition, Giolito was quoted in his last start as saying that giving up runs in the first inning is unacceptable (he coughed up four in the first on August 15 vs. St. Louis). Today he faced the minimum through three innings, and afterwards he ascribed that to treating his bullpen as the first inning of the game, getting into a lather early so the first pitch of the game was really just the start of the second or third inning in his mind.
"That was a big point of emphasis, cleaning up my first inning," Giolito said. "I just had a lot more focus in my pregame warmup and my bullpen. A lot more emphasis of kind of getting it going [with] simulating batters early on."
This is the kind of growth and adjustment we need to see from an ace pitcher. Giolito's final line? Seven scoreless innings in 110 pitches, with three hits and a walk against those lucky 13 Ks. Lucas' ERA is down to 3.89, FIP at 3.23.
And all in all, Giolito is really happy with what he's seeing in the locker room, as the wins mount.
"The more that we’re playing together, were getting closer," he said. "I didn’t think that would be possible, because we were already so close. We’re just having a lot of fun."
Video courtesy of the Chicago White Sox.