Chicago White Sox: Lucas Giolito gets his first win of 2021

The Chicago White Sox are coming around. The 1-3 start had some people worried but the Los Angeles Angels got the best of them late in three of four games. Every game was close but the White Sox were just on the wrong side. Now they are 3-3 after taking it to the Seattle Mariners for the second day in a row. The offense did their job as they score 10 runs on 10 hits but Lucas Giolito had to be good on the mound.

Lucas Giolito earned his first win of the season for the Chicago White Sox.

Giolito got off to a really nice start in two innings as he struck out five of the first six batters and looked like he was cruising to an easy win. It looked even better when Zack Collins hit a three-run home run to put them ahead by three. Giolito, however, struggled to get out of the third inning and the game ended up tied.

He didn’t get much help as the defense at second base, in left field, or behind the plate which didn’t help in that inning but Gioltio didn’t help himself either. The velocity was a little bit down from his normal stuff but they stopped the damage with a tie game. If the defense wasn’t horrible he would have probably given up zero runs but we are used to seeing Giolito get out of it all on his own.

Once he came back out, he buckled down and helped the White Sox win the game. He would end up pitching 5.1 innings where he had four hits against, one walk, three earned runs, and 10 strikeouts. Those are some decent stats for him and it would be an even better line if he (and the defense) didn’t have the one bad inning. 61 of his 96 pitches were strikes and 18 of them were swinging strikes. It was a really solid performance all around to get himself his first win of the season.

It is really cool to see the ace of the staff climbing up the record books. He recorded his 500th White Sox strikeout in this game. This game also marked the 11th time that he recorded 10 or more strikeouts or more in a game which ties Billy Pierce for sixth place on the all-time list. He is on pace to become one of the best pitchers this team has ever had.

The fact that Lucas Giolito hasn’t had his best yet but is still doing well should be scary for the rest of the league. As he works on his relationship with his catchers, things will only get better. This team relies on him a lot so it is cool to see him finally snag that first win. Hopefully, that is the first of many for our ace.