MINNEAPOLIS — It requires a major leap of the imagination, this particular “what if.”
What if the 2019 White Sox were in the home stretch of a drive for the playoffs?
All the same, the question was put to Sox pitcher Lucas Giolito, who, after an aborted Sunday throwing session, was shut down for the season due to a Grade 1 lat strain. It’s the mild variety, commonly sidelining pitchers for three to four weeks.
But what if? Would the team’s best starter have tried to bite down on the pain and keep taking the ball?
“If we were in a playoff hunt at this point, I’d be arguing as much as I could to go out there and pitch and compete,” Giolito said. “I feel like with how I felt [Sunday], I probably would’ve been able to get through it.”
We’ll never know. Back on Planet Real Life, where the Sox are 65-85, unplugging the 25-year-old right-hander clearly was the only move to make.
Instead, Giolito looks to the future — to 2020 — which means looking beyond a point where the Sox, deep into their rebuild, will consider losing acceptable.
“Now, for me, personally, the focus is on to next year,” he said. “I know that I’m going to improve and get better than I was this year.”
The rest of us can pause long enough to appreciate the mountainous transformation Giolito made from 2018 to 2019. Last season, he simply was as bad as any starter in the major leagues, his ERA (6.13), WHIP (1.48) and walk total (90) all cartoonishly high.
In the offseason, he retooled his mechanics and — perhaps no less important — participated in a rigorous neurofeedback training program that helped lower his anxiety and the effects of stress on the mound, which he is convinced improved both his pitch-to-pitch focus and his performance under pressure.
The results: He soared to 14-9 with a 3.41 ERA and a 1.06 WHIP. He limited his walks to 57 and increased his strikeouts from 125 to — in three fewer starts — a whopping 228. He was a first-time All-Star and is, general manager Rick Hahn contends, deserving of some Cy Young votes.
“Considering my body of work before this year, I knew probably a lot of people counted me out,” Giolito said. “But I knew the adjustments I made and all the stuff I’ve been talking to you guys about all year, I knew it was going to pay off for me. It did, for the most part.”
At his best, he was as good as anyone out there, shutting out the Astros in Houston and the Twins in Minneapolis and beating the Yankees twice.
“I think we’re looking at the Lucas Giolito you guys are going to be seeing for a while,” manager Rick Renteria said. “That’s our expectation.”
The word “ace” sometimes gets thrown around rather cheaply. The bridge between being the best starter on a pitching-starved team and being the No. 1 guy on a team with the World Series in its sights stretches an awfully long way.
The Sox still have stars in their eyes for Michael Kopech, the blue-chip prospect who is rehabbing from Tommy John surgery and could hit the ground running in 2020. Dylan Cease is a large piece of the puzzle, as is Reynaldo Lopez. A vastly more proven pitcher could be added in free agency, changing the “ace” discussion altogether. Wouldn’t that be nice?
If it’s too soon to call Giolito an ace, though, the Sox aren’t shying from it.
“I think that he’s doing ace-type stuff,” Renteria said. “We’ll let time tell us, as we continue to throw him out there and compete, what you guys will ultimately want to label him. But I see him as an ace-type guy.”
