Lucas Giolito has been on a roll for several starts now, but he dominated in a different way Saturday against the Royals.
Giolito, who was the AL Pitcher of the Month for May, is making a case to win the award in June as well. After pitching 7 1/3 scoreless innings against the Indians on June 2, Giolito backed that up with a career-high 11 strikeouts against the Royals on Saturday. He went 7 2/3 innings and didn’t give up a run in a 2-0 White Sox win.
“It feels good,” Giolito said after the game on the NBC Sports Chicago broadcast. “We dropped the last three so we were trying to get back on the winning side here and we did a good job today.”
Giolito’s stuff was absolutely dominant. He struck out the side in the second, third and fifth innings. He struck out five straight batters during a run between the second and third innings.
Giolito said catcher James McCann suggested mixing in the changeup after the first time through the order.
“He comes up to me and is like ‘Hey, we haven’t thrown a changeup yet,’” Giolito said of McCann. “Trying to keep them off balance. I’m usually super changeup heavy from the get go. Today I changed it up a little bit. Went with heater, slider to get through the lineup one time and then started introducing the changeup behind in the count later in the game. Keeping it a little bit different.”
According to the MLB.com pitch-by-pitch of the game, Giolito’s first changeup came in the third inning to leadoff hitter Whit Merrifield. Merrifield took it for a strike and struck out looking on a slider later in the at-bat. He threw 22 more changeups the rest of the way.
MLB
Giolito’s swinging strikes appear to line up with his changeup usage. He got the most swinging strikes the second time through before getting more outs by contact in the later innings. Here’s the inning-by-inning breakdown.
Swinging strikes by inning
1st: 1
2nd: 2
3rd: 3
4th: 4
5th: 6
6th: 3
7th: 2
8th: 1
Giolito struck out everyone in the Royals’ lineup except for Alex Gordon, who had one of the Royals’ three hits off him.
He started his strikeout binge by striking out three straight looking in the second, all on fastballs. Then he started to get more swinging strikes and mixed up the putaway pitch.
Giolito’s strikeouts
| Batter | Type | Pitch | Game time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jorge Soler | Looking | Fastball | 2nd inning, 1 out |
| Cheslor Cuthbert | Looking | Fastball | 2nd inning, 2 outs |
| Nicky Lopez | Looking | Fastball | 2nd inning, 3 outs |
| Ryan O'Hearn | Swinging | Fastball | 3rd inning, 1 out |
| Cam Gallagher | Swinging | Slider | 3rd inning, 2 outs |
| Whit Merrifield | Looking | Slider | 3rd inning, 3 outs |
| Adalberto Mondesi | Swinging | Changeup | 4th inning, 1 out |
| Soler | Looking | Slider | 4th inning, 2 outs |
| O'Hearn | Swinging | Fastball | 5th inning, 1 out |
| Gallagher | Swinging | Changeup | 5th inning, 2 outs |
| Terrance Gore | Swinging | Slider | 5th inning, 3 outs |
The last time Giolito faced the Royals, May 28, he gave up a 3-run homer to Gordon in the first inning. He bounced back to pitch 7 scoreless innings after that in a 4-3 White Sox win. Combine those seven innings with his scoreless outing against the Indians and Saturday’s performance and Giolito has had 22 straight scoreless innings.
Giolito’s season ERA fell to 2.28, which puts him second in the AL behind only Minnesota’s Jake Odorizzi (1.96).
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