Giolito's hot stretch comes to halt vs. Tigers

CHICAGO -- Lucas Giolito had four consecutive quality starts coming into Detroit's 8-3 victory over the White Sox on Tuesday night at Guaranteed Rate Field. The right-hander was fresh off possibly his best outing with Chicago, allowing one run on two hits over 6 1/3 innings while striking out eight against baseball's best offense from Boston.
That streak ended against Detroit.
Giolito started strong, striking out two during a nine-pitch perfect first. But he was gone by the end of the second, a frame during which the Tigers scored five and Giolito threw 41 pitches. Victor Martinez started that rally with an 11-pitch single as the leadoff hitter.

"They had some really good at-bats, and I just let the game speed up on me," said Giolito, who was pitching with a slight cold. "First at-bat of the [second] inning, it was like an 11-pitch base hit, another base hit after that and instead of kind of being within myself, slowing it down, I just kind of let it speed up. You do that at this level, you're going to have the kind of inning that I had in the second."
"After I saw him when we took him out, [I said], 'It's just one of those days,'" White Sox manager Rick Renteria said. "You just don't worry about it. Next guy comes in try to keep it down and try to keep us in the ball game. For the most part, they did. We were just a little short. We scored three runs but weren't able to chip away and keep the runs coming."

For the night, Giolito allowed five runs (four earned) over 1 1/3 innings that tied a career low, while striking out three and walking two. He had four swinging strikes and topped out at 95.6 mph on his fastball, per Statcast™, but felt his stuff was good despite the overall results.
"Thinking back on the game, there's a few situations in the second inning I just didn't execute the pitch I needed to, especially with two strikes," Giolito said. "Pitch count got up, and I was out of the game.
"I feel like I'm throwing the ball well. I didn't feel like there were any issues as far as that during the game. Like I said before, just going a little too fast and the next thing you know it's like 40 pitches in the inning."
Chicago cut the deficit to 6-3 against Francisco Liriano in the fourth, with Yoán Moncada's single and Ryan Cordell's sacrifice fly driving in two of the three runs. Cordell was making his Major League debut.

But Mikie Mahtook delivered a two-run home run off of reliever Ryan Burr in the eighth to extend the Tigers' lead. Detroit's victory forged a third-place tie once again in the American League Central, with both teams holding 56-83 records.
Jeanmar Gómez set a career high as a reliever with five strikeouts over 1 2/3 scoreless innings.

SOUND SMART
The White Sox dropped to 1-7 against the Tigers at Guaranteed Rate Field this season.
HE SAID IT
"I just washed it off in the shower. Move on to the next one." -- Giolito, on quickly putting Tuesday's rough start out of his mind
UP NEXT
Right-hander Michael Kopech (1-0, 0.82 ERA) will makes his fourth career start and third at home with a 7:10 p.m. CT first pitch Wednesday against the Tigers at Guaranteed Rate Field. Jordan Zimmermann (6-6, 4.22) starts for the Tigers. Each of Kopech's home starts has been rain-shortened: Two scoreless innings in his Major League debut on Aug. 21 vs. Minnesota and three scoreless innings on Aug. 31 vs. Boston. Rain is in the forecast again for Wednesday night.