White Sox’ Lucas Giolito dealing with ‘tough’ season

CLEVELAND — Lucas Giolito doesn’t want to be the weakest link in the White Sox rotation.

Once the ace of the staff, a 2019 All-Star and three-time Opening Day starter since that season, Giolito is still gathering himself fter giving up seven runs over three-plus innings in the Sox’ 21-5 slaughter at the hands of the Astros Thursday. The loss gave the Sox a split of a four-game series after they won the first two games.

“It’s obviously a tough year for me personally and for the team up until this point,” Giolito told the Sun-Times in Cleveland. “It’s tough because that was a series we wanted to win, I took the ball the last day and it’s my job to give us a chance to win. It didn’t happen and I put us in a horrible hole for the rest of the game.”

Giolito is second among Sox starters in innings with 116 1/3 innings but he will take a 5.34 ERA into his next start at the Orioles Tuesday. Lance Lynn has a 5.30 ERA in 71 1/3 innings, but Lynn’s ERA over his last six starts is 3.06. Giolito has a 7.39 ERA in his last six starts with 42 hits and 12 walks allowed over 28 innings.

“It’s been a lot of stuff this year trying to work through,” Giolito said. “Mechanically, physically. [Thursday] there were a few pitches that stick out in my brain, it was like ‘dang, if I had just executed that it could have gone completely different.’ ”

Giolito and pitching coach Ethan Katz are close from their days together when Katz coached him in high school. Giolito said he “feels bad” for Katz knowing the amount of time Katz has devoted to trying to fix him.

“I feel fine,” Giolito said. “Ideally I’d like for the ball to be coming out better. You deal with what you’ve got. Even when I’m not at my best, stuff wise there are ways to navigate lineups and get outs.”

Cy Young candidate Dylan Cease and Johnny Cueto would likely be the Sox’ Game 1 and 2 starters if the playoffs were to start today — that is, if the Sox were in them. At 61-59 going into their game against the Guardians Saturday, the Sox face an uphill climb.

Giolito is facing one as well.

“At this point all I can control is putting in the work in my days between starts and be as prepared as possible,” Giolito said, “and then the big thing is going out and trusting my stuff and executing pitches.”