White Sox: Lucas Giolito can be a championship ace

Lucas Giolito is good enough to be a championship ace for the Chicago White Sox.

When you think of World Series-winning teams, there is always that one pitcher at the front of the rotation that is straight-up dominant. For example, when the Chicago White Sox won the World Series in 2005, they were lucky to have a dominant rotation from top to bottom but Mark Buehrle stood out above the rest of them all. He was so great and remained great for the duration of his White Sox career.

That team isn’t the only example of that. The recent teams to win it all had the same level of dominance at the top of their rotation. The 2020 Los Angeles Dodgers had dominant guys like Walker Buehler and Clayton Kershaw. The 2019 Washington Nationals had Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg. The 2018 Boston Red Sox had Chris Sale and David Price. Well, the White Sox are hoping to put together something similar.

It starts and ends with Lucas Giolito. They have Dallas Keuchel, Lance Lynn, and some other young guys to try and be that second guy to him but Giolito is the guy at the top. Some people question whether or not he can be that guy but all of the signs he has given so far say he will. He was dominant in his first career playoff game against the Oakland Athletics this season but his team didn’t give him a chance to start another game.

It wasn’t always like this for Giolito, however, as he struggled when he first became a full-time starter. 2018 was a bad year for him but he turned it completely around one year later in 2019. He proved it wasn’t a one-year thing in 2020 when he was just as dominant. He has shown that he is above the average starter in the league enough to be an ace.

Even further than that, he can absolutely be an ace of a World Series champion. There is a lot of work to be done but they are clearly on the right track. The offense is amazing so the pitching around Giolito just needs to keep their end of the bargain.