Lucas Giolito Providing Early Stability For Padres With Room For Improvement

[Randy Holt]

Lucas Giolito is not the pitcher he once was. The San Diego Padres are simply banking on him being better than he is right now.

Giolito has made two starts for the Padres. He's thrown 10 innings and has posted a 2.70 ERA. Most important, at present, is the fact that he has a pair of wins to his credit. He has effectively navigated hard contact to the point where he hasn't allowed a barrel in either start. With a pitcher that didn't have a spring training, though, there's still a rounding-into-form that needs to take place before the results can be considered more reliable. 

That is certainly the case with Giolito. Because while the actual outcomes have been strong and resulted in two crucial wins at this still-early stage of the season for the Padres, they've also been imperfect. Giolito's fastball velocity is way down, at 90.4 MPH with the four-seamer. His 12.2 percent strikeout rate would represent a career-low, while his 19.5 percent walk rate is astronomical compared to his career averages. He's also still trying to figure out his pitch usage. 

In Giolito's first start, he was four-seam forward. He threw the pitch 55 percent of the time with a 25 percent whiff rate and 10 called strikes. Even without the velocity, it was effective. His changeup came in as his primary secondary pitch at a 29 percent pitch rate. It wasn't effective on the whiff side, but he also avoided hard contact entirely with it. 

Over the weekend, Giolito made start No. 2 against the Athletics. Therein, the pitch mix was somewhat flipped in that he threw the change 47 percent of the time and the four-seamer for 31 percent of his offerings. The whiffs came through with the former this time (33 percent), but not the latter. The A's were much more adept at avoiding chase and making contact than in his first start against Seattle, but the results remained strong across his second outing.

What's important in all of this isn't so much the results. This is still a minuscule sample and it's hard to glean too much based on those outcomes for a player that didn't have a spring exhibition slate in which to ramp up. It's Giolito getting a grip on what he wants to throw and the subsequent effect of those choices. Which brings us to one element on which to keep an eye: where's the slider?

The slider has long represented Giolito's tertiary offering. He has always been four-seam and changeup first, with the slider behind them. However, that pitch has only been thrown 15.9 percent of the time in his two starts this season. Is it a feel thing? Is it not wanting to aggravate prior issues by heavily utilizing a pitch notorious for irritating the elbow? Considering he's cut the usage by 10 percent off last year's rate, it's worth monitoring given the necessity of a third pitch in starting pitcher success. 

Of course, the results have their place as well. While the game for Giolito has been about getting settled in the rotation, he's going to be keen to improve the underlying stuff beyond his ERA. Especially given that he's operated with a rather fortunate .185 batting average on balls in play through those two starts. He's going to want to get the strikeout rate to at least a modest bump and improve his command to cut the free passes to a much more serious extent. 

Ultimately, the results have been what the Padres needed. After watching a stretch of starts featuring wobbly outings from Germán Márquez, Walker Buehler, and Griffin Canning, a couple of five-inning performances resulting in victories have to feel like a breath of fresh air. But as the sample grows, there's plenty of room for improvement from Giolito. He doesn't need to be the pitcher he once was, but there's going to need to be at least a bit of a trending in that direction for him to continue to provide such steady value for the remainder of 2026.

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