KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Lucas Giolito’s time has come.
It came a little while ago, actually, when he made his first big league appearances in 2016 with the Washington Nationals. And it came at the end of last season, too, when he made seven impressive August and September starts for the White Sox.
But because baseball is full of so many different firsts, Giolito’s time has come again, now in the form of his first major league Opening Day and the beginning of his first full season in the majors.
There are many young arms in the White Sox farm system that could one day achieve “ace” status — Michael Kopech throws like 200 miles an hour, Alec Hansen struck out like every player in minor league baseball last season, stuff like that — but Giolito is here right now. He was excellent in those seven starts at the end of 2017, finishing with a 2.38 ERA. He might be the best pitcher currently on the White Sox major league roster, and because of that there were many disappointed social-media users hoping Giolito would’ve started Thursday’s season-opener instead of James Shields.
But Giolito goes second for the White Sox on Saturday against the Kansas City Royals. It will be a significant moment for the 23-year-old righty who has gone through quite the transformation since joining the organization in one of those trades the jolted this rebuilding effort to life after the 2016 season.
“He was a different guy when he came up last year,” White Sox pitching coach Don Cooper said Thursday. “In spring training (of 2017), looking back on it, he was in search of stuff that wasn’t really attainable. He was looking for more velocity. What I saw was enough stuff.
“If you are pitching and pouring your strikes in — he has four pitches and changes speeds — you have enough stuff. He was tying up himself mentally, searching for some velocity. It wasn’t allowing his other pitches to even come out to play. The mental guy was choking the physical guy and not letting the physical guy have his best attributes come out to play. Now it’s just about pitching.”
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Giolito will admit the same thing. And a lot has happened since those days in Arizona. He made 22 good starts at Triple-A Charlotte and racked up 134 strikeouts in 128.2 innings. He threw a no-hitter down there, too. Then he came up and pitched great at the major league level, quite the redemption from the 6.75 ERA he had in his six 2016 outings with the Nats.
This spring, he was again terrific, finishing with a 2.04 ERA and 17 strikeouts in 17.2 innings.
The different pitcher has seemingly arrived.
“Those last few starts in spring, my pitches felt good,” Giolito said Thursday. “A big goal of mine was to improve the curveball, throw it better for a strike, kind of improve the shape of it a little bit. And I feel like I achieved that. Continue to work on that stuff and hopefully carry that into the season.
“A lot more confidence, sense of belonging, feeling at home in the clubhouse. All the guys were developing that family atmosphere, everyone is just having a lot of fun with each other. Definitely different vibes this year for me and feeling much more positive.
“Just working through some things both mentally and physically the past couple years, kind of putting a lot of it together over the course of the end of last season and then working on stuff in the offseason, feeling very confident about my pitches, about where I was at both physically and mentally. And having a strong spring always helps. Just overall, just having a much more positive attitude, feeling very sure of myself, very confident every time I take the ball.”
Spring training is spring training, as the players will tell you, and the stats are pretty much meaningless. But at the same time, good performances in the Cactus League are good signs as guys who need to prove themselves or have good campaigns or build off of last year begin the regular season on the right foot.
“Lucas had a nice spring. He picked up basically where he left off in September,” general manager Rick Hahn said. “His breaking ball showed very well in Arizona, which is not an easy thing to do. You hear that from a lot of pitchers about the difficulty in establishing their breaking ball, and Lucas really didn’t seem to scuffle with that, which makes you optimistic about how it’s going to play once we got out of the valley.
“Still a young kid, still has not made a ton of starts at the big league level. He’s looking more and more like the kind of guy we projected him to be, which is a stalwart in the rotation going forward.”
Guys like Kopech, Hansen, Dylan Cease and Dane Dunning developing in the minors, as well as current big leaguers like Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez, Carson Fulmer and Carlos Rodon, make projecting the White Sox rotation of the future a difficult task. That’s a lengthy list of names for only five spots on the starting staff.
Giolito, though, perhaps because of his comparatively early arrival in this rebuilding process or perhaps because of what he showed in a small sample size last September, seems like a guy who can be penciled in as a very important piece when this team reaches its planned stage of contention. He looks like a potential rotation leader, and he admitted it’s a role he’d love to take on.
“I feel like we’re all leaders in our own way. That’s what we’re learning, especially from the veteran guys, is how we can all come together and kind of help lead each other,” Giolito said. “If one guy is not doing so hot, not feeling as confident, then we’re going to have a bunch of leaders there to pick him up and help him out.
“As far as the pitching staff goes, I’d love to step into that leadership role in the next few years. But I’m definitely learning a lot from James Shields along the way. He has been there, he’s done that and he’s got a lot of knowledge, a lot of good info that I’m trying to learn.”
As the White Sox rebuild rolls on, the future is still on the way when it comes to many of the young players in the minor leagues. But in the case of Giolito, the future starts now.