Rain-soaked day on the South Side can't wash away Lucas Giolito's continued resurgence

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Saturday wasn’t Lucas Giolito’s best outing of the year, nor was it is longest, thanks to an extended bout of heavy rain that delayed the White Sox tilt with the Toronto Blue Jays almost three hours before it was finally called. But it was another good one, and Giolito’s status as the team’s most reliable starting pitcher remained intact.

It’s only been seven and a half months since Giolito finished his first full season in the major leagues as, statistically, baseball’s worst qualified starting pitcher. He led the game in ERA and WHIP. He led the American League in walks. It was a rough campaign that lasted as long as it did because the rebuilding White Sox were in a position to let their young players learn from their growing pains.

Well, a season later, Giolito seems to have learned plenty.

“I think he absorbed everything that happened last season, good and bad. I think it has played a huge role in his development and his growth,” manager Rick Renteria said before Saturday’s game. “I think he’s taken ahold and challenged himself and sought to look to improve and do things that are going to help him continue to evolve as a pitcher at the major league level.

“I think to this point he has shown that he has taken ahold of some of the changes that he’s gravitated to. But on top of that, the confidence, his mentality. He’s a pretty driven kid, pretty bright kid. I’m glad we have him on our side. I’m really looking forward to continuing to see him grow as a Chicago White Sox.”

Giolito lowered his season ERA to 3.35 with five innings of one-run ball Saturday, giving up just three hits and a pair of walks and technically recording his first career complete game, the franchise’s first since September 2016.

The most impressive moment came as the skies opened up and the goal seemed clear: make this an official game in case the rain meant no further baseball. Giolito, pitching in a monsoon, struck out the three batters he faced in the top of the fifth inning, accomplishing that goal in dominating fashion, even if the umpires and Blue Jays hitters might have had the same results in mind.

“Everyone was joking about that. They were like, 'Shower! Complete game!' I don't consider it a complete game until I get nine,” Giolito said after the game was called. “But I went out there for the fifth, saw the rain coming down, and I was like, 'All right, we've got to pick up the tempo a little bit.' Luckily, we were able to get through five and close it out there.

“The raindrops were so big that they were getting into my glove, on the ball, getting on my hand. So my approach was just to attack the strike zone with a fast pace and hopefully get a nice 1-2-3 inning, and that's what we did.”

Giolito’s logged three quality starts and could very well have two more had those outings not been shortened. In addition to Saturday’s rain-impacted affair, Giolito had to exit his April 17 start against the Kansas City Royals with a hamstring injury after just 2.2 innings.

Giolito’s been a different pitcher in 2019, taking a leap that has thrust him back into a conversation many fans and observers kicked him out of after how 2018 went. Once the top-rated pitching prospect in baseball, plenty of folks gave up on Giolito’s long-term status as a member of the White Sox rotation of the future. But he’s on the way to achieving the kind of consistency he struggled to find last season.

“I think he feels that everything he's doing right now is going to be able to lead him to have an opportunity to do what he wants on the mound,” Renteria said after the game. “He doesn't get flustered. He's very much under control in his emotions, all the things he was working to control last year. With the change of his arm swing, his ability to repeat and execute along with another year under his belt in the big leagues and being able to trust himself.”

While a physical change has been beneficial, Giolito gave plenty of credit to his mental approach this season, his different way of reacting to trouble and settling down in tight spots.

“Definitely the mental side,” he said. “Cleaning up a lot of things when it comes to my mind racing out there. I walked two batters in the fourth, and whereas last year that might get me going a little bit, might be rushing and trying to get out of it really fast, now I'll take my deep breath, reset, know what I can do and just execute.

“It's all in the breath. If things are starting to go a little bit haywire out there, I always go back to my breath. Step off the mound, take a big, deep breath, reset, forget about what happened, on to the next pitch.”

There’s a lot of baseball left to be played, of course, and just like one rough season in 2018 didn’t mark a definitive end of Giolito’s long-term prospects, a string of good starts early on in 2019 doesn’t mark a definitive return of them. But this is a very positive sign for a team with its focus on the future and a pleasant surprise for a fan base that watched plenty of bad starts from Giolito last season.

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