In the midst of an atrocious second half last season, one in which he was traded, designated for assignment and claimed off waivers, Lucas Giolito saw a glimmer of hope.
In a mid-September start against the eventual World Series champion Texas Rangers, no less, Giolito posted his best start of the year with seven scoreless innings, allowing two hits and striking out 12.
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It was just one start in the middle of a 12-start stretch in which he posted a 6.96 ERA, but it gave him motivation.
“That was kind of a key indicator, like yeah, I still got it,” Giolito said. “It’s just a matter of bringing it out more often and so that’s what I’m hard at work at right now.”
For that reason, Giolito feels primed for a bounce-back year in Boston.
The Red Sox officially announced Wednesday they’d signed Giolito to a two-year deal, one that’s worth $38.5 million with an opt-out after the first year. Giolito is set to make $18 million this season, as he seeks to prove that one start was not an aberration.
After six seasons with the Chicago White Sox with some bright moments, including a no-hitter in 2020, Giolito was traded at the deadline this summer and everything started to unravel. The right-hander began the year with a 3.79 ERA and 25.8 percent strikeout rate through 21 starts with the White Sox, but after a trade to the Los Angeles Angels in the midst of filing for divorce, Giolito hit a rough patch and couldn’t recover. In six starts with the Angels, he posted a 6.89 ERA. The Angels designated him for assignment and the Cleveland Guardians picked him up off waivers, but he didn’t fare much better, outside of that one brilliant September start, putting up a 7.04 ERA in his final six starts.
“I’d say the biggest thing is consistency. The last couple of months of my season I was moving around a lot and I got into some bad funks, I’d say mechanically, mentally,” he said. “This offseason I’ve been really getting back to the basics when it comes to my work leading up to the next season getting my mechanics tightened back up, repeating my delivery and getting prepared to go out and try to throw as many quality innings as possible. That’s truly what I believe is the most important thing to do as a starting pitcher is give your team a ton of quality innings.”
At the moment, Giolito’s durability is his greatest strength. But he’s trying to get back to the Cy Young contender he was from 2019 to 2021, when he finished in the top 11 three straight years.
Even during an awful second half full of personal turmoil, Giolito posted every start and finished the year with 33 starts and 184 1/3 innings across three teams. In every full season since 2018, he made at least 29 starts and threw at least 160 innings, a workload no Red Sox starter matched last year.
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From 2019 to 2021, Giolito ranked 18th in the majors in ERA and ranked sixth-best in strikeout percentage with 200 or more strikeouts in two of the last three seasons.
“I feel over the last couple of seasons that I’ve fallen into a few bad habits where I kind of leak down the mound, get a little long, and it puts me in a position to not be able to deliver pitches consistently,” he said. “Missing spots and maybe losing stuff here and there. When you’re kind of spiraling a little bit, that’s when it can kind of hit you mentally.”
Some of the struggles likely can be attributed to a dropped arm slot, a potentially fixable problem for a club ramping up its pitching development program to the extent the Red Sox are under chief baseball officer Craig Breslow.
In 2021, Giolito posted a 3.53 ERA and 28 percent strikeout rate. That year, opponents slugged .427 off his fastball and he recorded a 25.6 percent strikeout rate on the four-seamer. But in the two subsequent years, the numbers ticked down. In 2022, opponents slugged .449 against his four-seamer with a 21.3 percent strikeout rate. This past year, they slugged .546 with a 20 percent strikeout rate. It was part of the reason why he led the American League with an eye-popping 41 homers allowed. His changeup suffered a similar lack of efficiency. Getting his fastball back to a more dominant pitch that everything else — his changeup, slider and curveball — can play off will be key.
Giolito, who turns 30 in July, said the Red Sox were the first team to reach out to him this winter and he came away extremely impressed with their presentation from Breslow, manager Alex Cora and pitching coach Andrew Bailey.
“I had a really, really interesting — I’d say amazing — Zoom call, kind of like the pitch meeting, where I got to get a feel for the organization,” he said. “I got to meet some of the staff and I really liked everything I heard. I feel like it’s just a great fit for me, what I’m trying to do, get back to the type of pitcher I know I can be. I’m a huge fan of Andrew Bailey, the new pitching coach. I’ve had wonderful conversations with him over the last couple of weeks. And then kind of on top of it all, Boston Red Sox, storied franchise, Fenway Park. Not much to complain about there.”
Giolito may not be in the Cy Young conversation like he once was, but he still figures to be a strong addition to a rotation that could use another solid starter and he might just be the first big project for Breslow’s revamped pitching program.
(Top photo: Jerome Miron / USA Today)
