Prospect Giolito pleased with White Sox debut

CHICAGO -- Trust your stuff.
That mantra has been espoused by Lucas Giolito -- the No. 59 prospect overall, per MLBPipeline.com -- since back in Spring Training and continued as he worked his way toward the White Sox as part of the Triple-A Charlotte rotation this season. That idea played out for the big right-hander during his White Sox debut Tuesday night at Guaranteed Rate Field in a 4-1 loss to the Twins.
Giolito, 23, allowed four runs on six hits over six innings and 99 pitches. But he essentially was working fastball/changeup the entire game and still managed to strike out four, not issue a walk and keep the White Sox in the game. It was a solid debut for another one of the rebuild's prized pitching pupils, following Reynaldo López and Carson Fulmer, with Giolito figuring to remain in the White Sox starting five for the remainder of the current campaign.
"The curveball wasn't feeling as well as I would have liked, but I was able to get the fastball in for the most part. Pitching a lot off my fastball," Giolito said. "It's probably the most I've pitched off my fastball the second half of the season. It felt good. The fastball felt good. I just need to keep working on getting that offspeed stuff over."

"Lucas threw the ball very very well," White Sox manager Rick Renteria said. "Fastball was very good. He was using his breaking ball. He threw some that were a little short, but all and all, his attack of the strike zone, he threw a lot of strikes. He looked very, very good to me. Very pleased."
Despite throwing fastballs on nearly 70 percent of his pitches, Giolito still finished with eight swings-and-misses on the pitch. His average fastball velocity checked in at 93.2 mph, topping out at 95.8 mph per Statcast™.
Jorge Polanco (leading off the fourth), Kennys Vargas (leading off the fifth) and Eddie Rosario (one on, one out in the sixth) connected on missed locations on fastballs from Giolito for home runs. But Giolito featured a commanding mound presence, coming off a 0-1 showing and 6.75 ERA with Washington in '16, prior to being sent to the White Sox as part of the Adam Eaton deal.

"I feel like I belong. I feel like my stuff plays. I'm happy I didn't walk anyone tonight," said Giolito, who threw eight strikes on offspeed pitches and got two swings-and-misses on his changeup. "Fastball-changeup was pretty much all I had. I wasn't throwing the curveball as well as I would have liked, but I'm going to work on that for the next start and hopefully be able to command that pitch a little better.
"Tonight I was able to control the game a lot better. Last year my time in the big leagues, the game would speed up on me a lot. I'd walk a guy, give up a couple of base hits and start to kind of get out of control. Tonight I felt under control. I was able to trust my stuff. It was just those mistakes."