Giolito shows 'his talent and his guts' in win

Lucas Giolito performed like the staff ace that he is during the White Sox 2-1 victory over the Twins on Wednesday afternoon at Target Field.

• Box score

There was no focus or talk about unwritten baseball rules, Yermín Mercedes’ 3-0 swing on Monday or the ensuing response. There was no memory of Chicago failing to hold a two-run lead in the eighth inning of Tuesday’s loss. The story in the series finale centered upon Giolito when the White Sox really needed their No. 1 hurler.

“Outstanding. [Giolito was] exactly what we needed to win the series against a lineup that you know they're good,” White Sox manager Tony La Russa said. “He just did everything that our team needed, and you can't give him enough credit.

“What you saw today was a combination of his talent and his guts, and we've seen his guts. He really sets an example about how hard he competes. The ball was coming out of his hand well. He was outstanding, and that's who he is. He's outstanding.”

Giolito held every Twins starter hitless outside of designated hitter Nelson Cruz -- who singled in the first and homered in the third -- and struck out 11, including nine on his changeup, over eight innings and 111 pitches. The right-hander walked the Minnesota leadoff hitter in the first, second and sixth, but none of those runners scored.

Throwing the changeup didn’t feel any different to Giolito compared to his past five outings, where he had a 6.75 ERA with no quality starts and 24 strikeouts in 24 innings. Of course, seven earned runs of that elevated ERA came during his one-plus-inning loss to Boston on April 19.

“It was my go-to put-away pitch,” said Giolito of his changeup. “It looked like they were really trying to stay on the heater all day, no matter what I was throwing. So me and [catcher] Zack [Collins] just fell into a really nice rhythm recognizing that changeup was a difference-maker, so we kept going back to it, and it was working.”

“I mean, he’s a really good pitcher,” Cruz said. “He always has that really good changeup that keeps hitters off-balance. That was his main pitch today.”

First baseman Andrew Vaughn helped Giolito in that sixth, turning a hard-hit Max Kepler grounder into an inning-ending 3-6-3 double play. But Giolito took care of the seventh and eighth, striking out three and retiring six in a row, before giving way to Liam Hendriks and his dominant nine-pitch ninth to earn the save.

“Even early in the game, I felt like I was searching a little bit,” Giolito said. “A couple of leadoff walks which are never acceptable in my book. I was able to pitch around those.

“As we went on, I feel like I got better. When I’m going good, that’s generally how it goes. I was happy about that one. Now we move on to the next.”

The White Sox have won five of their six head-to-head matchups against the Twins (14-27) this season and improved to 26-16 overall. Wednesday’s contest completed a run of 13 consecutive games against the Royals and Twins, with Chicago producing a 10-3 mark during that time. They also have not lost back-to-back games since April 15-17 (with the 16th being a rainout) and have not lost more than two in a row.

They know they are a very good team and have known since the start of Spring Training. They play with that special swagger every day, regardless of what’s going on around them.

“One hundred percent. It doesn't matter what's going on in the game, what happened yesterday, what's going to happen tomorrow,” Giolito said. “We play with that confidence no matter what.

“We need that to be able to keep it going. It's a long season. It's going to be a lot longer than last year. Some of these younger guys haven't experienced a full season like that. All we've got to do is keep the energy high and keep the confidence high, and we do a good job of that. I think it's only going to get better."

There also was one closing thought presented by Giolito, another of the team leaders, concerning the clubhouse being affected by La Russa’s take on Mercedes.

“No negativity,” Giolito said. “We all support Yermín. We love home runs here. That's it. We're going to move on.”