Four starts into the season, the Kansas City Royals are no closer to figuring out Lucas Giolito.
Instead, Giolito had his best game yet against the divisional foes. He struck out 11 over 7⅔ scoreless innings, holding the Royals to just three singles and two walks. Aaron Bummer and Alex Colomé faced the minimum while handling the rest, and as a result, Eloy Jiménez's two-run homer was enough for the Sox to snap their three-game losing streak.
Back to facing a lineup with a fair amount of righties, Giolito went back to his slider as his primary weapon. In fact, he didn't show the Royals a changeup the first time through the order, yet still managed to record eight strikeouts over the first four innings, including all backwards K's in the second.
(One of them was Whit Merrifield, who stepped out of the box once he saw Terrance Gore get a huge jump, only to forget he had two strikes on him. Giolito dropped a slider in the zone for the easiest third strike he may ever get.)
The Royals eventually put the ball in play, but not with much authority. Only five of them topped 90 mph in exit velocity, and four of them turned into outs.
Giolito started the eighth at 104 pitches, but Rick Renteria let him go until the first sign of strain. That didn't arrive until Merrifield's two-out single on the seventh pitch of the inning, but Bummer induced a groundout from Alex Gordon to stop it short of a threat.
Brad Keller was almost as good as Giolito, if you consider groundouts as exciting as punchouts. He racked up 14 of those over eight innings, over which he scattered five hits and a walk while striking out four.
His only burp came in the second. With one out, Jose Rondón -- batting fifth for some reason -- pulled a single through the left side. Jiménez followed and saw three straight pitches away. He took a slider in the dirt, watched a 94 mph fastball on the outside corner, and then when Keller came with another one at 94 in a similar spot, Jiménez reached out and flicked it over the right field fence to give the Sox a 2-0 lead.
That was the only damage Keller allowed, but it was enough to sink his record to 3-8. Giolito, conversely, is 9-1 with a 2.28 ERA, including a 3-0 record and a 1.80 ERA over four starts to the Royals.
Bullet points:
*Giolito got 22 swinging strikes out of his 111 pitches, with his late-arriving changeup leading the way (nine out of 23).
*At 2 hours and 28 minutes, it's in a three-way tie for the fastest nine-inning White Sox game of the year, and the fastest of any game that required a team to hit in the bottom of the ninth.
*James McCann was charged with a throwing error when his attempt to get Adalberto Mondesi skipped into center field, but with two outs and a two-run lead, the extra 90 feet didn't end up mattering.
*Home plate umpire Bruce Dreckman had a big plate all game, and Ned Yost got ejected for arguing a low strike in the sixth.
Record: 30-33 | Box score | Highlights
