White Sox 4, Astros 0: Lucas Giolito twirls four-hitter
If Lucas Giolito had one blemish during his otherwise encouraging start to the 2019 season, it was that he’d built his improved line against bad teams. He was 3-0 with a 1.25 ERA over 28â…” innings against offenses in the bottom half of the league, but a 7.53 ERA against the American League’s better lineups.
Throwing a four-hit shutout against the league’s best offense certainly puts a dent in that critique.
After tossing a rain-shortened complete game against Toronto his last time out, Giolito threw the first real complete game of the Rick Renteria era. He allowed just four singles, a walk and a hit batter while striking out nine, and threw a whopping 82 strikes out of 107 pitches. He didn’t throw a ball in three separate innings:
- Second inning: 11 pitches, 11 strikes.
- Fifth inning: Nine pitches, nine strikes.
- Seventh inning: Six pitches, six strikes.
He bullied the Astros with a fastball that average 94.8 mph, and topped out at 97.3 mph. While his changeup was his primary secondary pitch (24 of them), his slider did more damage, as he induced seven swinging strikes out of just 20 pitches.
The Astros hit several balls hard, but Giolito received fine support behind him. Jose Abreu made a couple of picks on hot shots, including a 3-6-3-6 double play in the first inning (he stepped on first and caught Josh Reddick in a pickle). Yoan Moncada saved his valuable face by getting his glove up on a laser by Yuli Gurriel, and Eloy Jiménez caught both hard line drives hit his way, albeit with a minimal amount of grace. He flagged down another Gurriel sizzler with an awkward-but-well-timed leap in the seventh, then scrambled to make a sliding catch on Alex Bregman’s sinking liner after originally breaking back to end the eighth.
— Jim Margalus (@SoxMachine) May 24, 2019
As for the White Sox offense, it used an excellent sequence of plate appearances against rookie Corbin Martin in the third inning to provide the winning margin.
Yolmer Sanchez started the inning by getting ahead 3-0, falling into a full count, then lofting a fly off the face of the Crawford boxes for a leadoff double. Charlie Tilson then kept the bat on his shoulder during a five-pitch walk, and after Yoan Moncada watched the first four pitches of his at-bat for a 3-1 count, he shot the next pitch over first base for an RBI double.
Tim Anderson counted on Martin returning to the zone, and his aggressiveness was rewarded with a single through the left side that scored Tilson and moved Moncada to third. Anderson then drew one pickoff throw that almost picked him off, and a second one that sailed over the head of the first baseman to make it a 3-0 game.
Eloy Jiménez added to the lead in the fourth inning, smoking a 19-degree laser out to left for a solo shot.
The White Sox left traffic on the basepaths in a couple other innings, and a couple of failed bunt attempts played a part. In the seventh, Leury GarcÃa whiffed on a safety squeeze attempt with runners on the corners and one out, and he eventually struck out. Tilson tried bunting a pair of runners over after a walk and a single started the eighth, but he fouled it off en route to the first of three strikeouts to end the inning.
All in all, the White Sox were an unremarkable 2-for-13 with runners in scoring position. Then again, the Astros were 0-for-1.
Bullet points:
*Every White Sox starter had a hit save Yonder Alonso, who went 0-for-3. He did draw a walk in his last plate appearance.
*Anderson and Sanchez reached base three times.
*James McCann stole his third base in as many attempts.
Record: 23-26 | Box score | Highlights
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 Now win two of three from the Twinkies, pleaseÂ
What a turnaround. The first two games, we looked helpless, and a Houston sweep seemed inevitable. Still can’t believe we earned a split.
Glad that Giolito was able to get the complete game. You could tell that meant a lot to him, as it should.
CGs are bull compared to fatigue effects. The 100 pitch marker was somewhat arbitrary when proposed but subsequent research has shown there are costs to high pitch counts.
98 pitches through 8 innings may be 15% less fatiguing than the same through 4 innings. But piling on more pitches gives up that benefit for the sake of 1 inning at the expense of future performance over the course of the season.
It’s a bit less surprising that Giolito had the best outing of his career after only having to throw 80 pitches against Toronto, even on the road against a lineup that’s still one of the best in baseball without Altuve and Springer.
I don’t see any negatives to him pitching the ninth and getting the complete game. He ended up with 107 pitches, an acceptable number. If and when this team contends, its starters are going to have to know how to pitch complete games, and not get bailed out by the bullpen every time. If we want Giolito to develop into a true ace, he has to have the mentality to keep battling when he’s around the 100-pitch mark and not wimp out by having someone else finish the job. Perhaps in the future we will be in a playoff game with Giolito having a 2-0 lead in the ninth during a period when our closer has been struggling. In other words, the best option might be keeping him in the game. If that situation comes up, Giolito now has the confidence he can go the distance against a championship-caliber team.
If you have zero reliable relievers I don’t think you are getting very far in the playoffs.
You should probably go read the research about pitchers and fatigue. Your reference point is about a decade out of date.
Aw man, it’s just like listening to TheScore.
I remember at the start of the series some jerk suggested in the comments that the Sox just forfeit the games in order to save their bullpen. Ha! That guy looks pretty stupid now.
Is it time to put Eloy at cleanup, call up Cease.
Why call up Cease? He still needs the work in Charlotte.
What does Cease need to work on in Charlotte?
He still looks kind of babyfaced. I would recommend a beard.
Consistency.
Walk and a single to start the 8th, and we bunt into an out.
This crap is getting so frustrating. If this was a year where we actually had a chance to contend, this type of repetitive gifting of outs could seriously hold us back.
He’s not going to change if/when this team gets good. Get rid of him now so we can put someone in place who can take us to the next level.
I remember when Jerry used to employ quality management. Doug Collins was replaced by an ex-journeyman player named Phil Jackson, even though the Bulls were the 2nd best team in the conference. We all know how that turned out. It’s time to find our Phil Jackson. But who am I kidding. Rick doesn’t have a clue.