It may sound crazy, but over the past month Lucas Giolito has been the worst starting pitcher for the White Sox. He’s struggled with both his stuff and his command, and when he’s been hit, he’s been hit hard. Since the start of June he’s put up a 9.00 ERA, and since May 25 his ERA on the season has ballooned from 2.63 to 5.40.
The struggles continued on Wednesday, and after the game Giolito said there’s no excuse for how poorly he performed.
“I just got shelled,” Giolito said. “They hit the ball hard, hammered mistakes. They hit some balls that were executed well. That's pretty much it.”
The Blue Jays managed to hit five balls off of Giolito with an exit velocity of 100 mph or more. Two of those balls had an exit velo of more than 105 mph.
“It's pretty brutal,” Giolito said. “Yeah, it sucks. Keep working, keep trying to make these adjustments.”
Giolito has been working on small mechanical tweaks in his bullpen sessions, and said that in those sessions it feels like he’s making progress. But when it comes to time to play for real, he’s not executing.
“The way we're playing right now, the offense, the defense, I just have to give the team a chance to win, and I'm failing to do that over and over,” Giolito said. “It's very frustrating and so that's why I've gotta just figure it out.
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“I'm just not doing my job in between the lines.”
In this particular start however, Tony La Russa gave Giolito the benefit of the doubt, and tipped his cap to the Blue Jays’ potent lineup.
“They got on him right away and didn't really give him a chance to get established,” La Russa said. “I just give them credit. He's healthy. He's ready to go against the Angels.”
“He’s got unbelievable stuff,” said Andrew Vaughn. “He’s going to come out next start, and we all believe in him.”
Giolito shares that confidence in himself. He knows that when he’s right, he’s a strong starter who can go deep into games and strike out batters at a high clip.
“It's just a matter of making it happen, making the adjustments that are necessary,” Giolito said. “It's been frustrating. I want to give the team a chance to win when I take the ball. I have not been doing that, and so that’s pretty much it. I've got to figure it out.”