Since the All-Star break, Lucas Giolito has had a rocky go at things, to say the least. He was relatively successful in his last outing against the Marlins, allowing only one earned run over 6.1 IP. But overall, since mid-July, he’s struggled with both control and command more than usual, which has been a main factor in his struggles as of late.
Interestingly, Giolito has had three Certifiably Bad starts since the break, two We’ll Take Those starts, and one gem of an outing against the Astros. Against the Padres, his lack of control hit an all-time high, as he allowed a season-high six walks over 4.2 IP. While the Red Sox nearly won that game, it was not a good showing for a Giolito, who seemed to be back to his late-June/early-July self after the outing against Houston.
In his other two concerning outings, it’s mostly been command that’s hurt him rather than control. But even so, his strikeout numbers have generally dwindled across all six starts since the All-Star break — including the game against the Astros when he only struck out four over eight innings — even when the walks weren’t a glaring issue. Even in his wins, he’s allowed more traffic on the base paths than usual — both in the form of walks and hits.
He’s averaged a 1.46 WHIP in these six starts, and allowed fewer than five hits in only one outing, after doing that five times in his past six starts before this stretch. The interesting thing is, in two of the better starts where he allowed at least five hits since July 18, he hasn’t gotten burned by the excessive baserunners. We saw this on Friday, when he allowed seven hits over 6.1 IP, but exited with only one earned run to his name, and back in his start against the Twins on July 29, when he allowed five hits and two walks over 6 IP and only one earned run to show for it. While neither of these lines is necessarily bad, the poor WHIP, which was healthily helped by his 0.5 WHIP in the Houston outing, is indicative of a lack of command and could also be telling us that time is catching up with him.
For the entire season, Giolito has significantly overperformed his 5.22 xERA and 4.44 SIERA with a 3.63 ERA. And while this excess of baserunners may be, at least halfway, sustainable over a six-start stretch, it’s not going to last the whole rest of Boston’s season. And while the disparities haven’t caught up to him yet, they continue to close in distance with these spotty results, and it’s hard to escape the reality of a pitcher’s lack of prowess over the course of a full season.
If this spell of concerning command continues — and we’ve had all indications that it will, even in successful starts — he’ll be giving the Red Sox more starts similar to his April and early May self than the impressive run we saw him go on before the break.
Luckily, baseball is an odd game, and sometimes you can allow seven hits and just one earned run. But that’s not something Boston could or should rely on heading into an important stretch and upcoming playoff push. To end the regular season, the Red Sox cannot count on Giolito to be a key to an overachieving rotation as he was in May, and his contributions are likely to dwindle when the luck, fortune or coincidence eventually runs out. While I’d be more than happy for this not to occur, Lady Luck can’t stick around forever, even if you’re a former Cy Young competing, no-hitter tossing, Chill Dude who most everyone is rooting for.