WASHINGTON DC, JUNE 28: Washington starting pitcher Lucas Giolito (44) makes his major league debut as the Washington Nationals play the New York Mets at Nationals Park in Washington DC, June 28, 2016. (Photo by John McDonnell / The Washington Post)
Its been a while since I did one of these, but what better occasion than to eyeball our newest and biggest prospect on his MLB debut.
Lets talk about Lucas Giolito‘s abbreviated debut. Here’s what I saw.
Smooth and easy delivery, almost effortless. He seems like he’s just lobbing it in. According to TV, FB at 94-96. Here’s his Pitch F/X link on the night: they classified his change-ups mostly as curves, had his average velocity at 93.9 and his peak at 95.9 (so the TV gun wasn’t embellishing). In the first, He gave up a weak single to Granderson to lead-off, got the benefit of some high strikes against Cabrera before blowing him away with a “show me” 96 mph fastball down the pike. Cespedes sat on a first pitch fastball and absolutely gashed it … right at Rendon. Walker got a really nice change-up to start him off (nice to see that confidence to command his change-up 0-0), got him down 0-2 and kind of knew a a curve was coming and hit it pretty hard, but Murphy made a nice play to retire him and save the run. Huge delta between his FB and change, and he controlled the change. He only threw 2 curves in the first inning, one of which broke so sharply that the ump missed the call (it was borderline low anyway) and the second got hit.
Second inning even though he’s “only” 93 Loney was way behind. You have to attribute that to his length and the fact that he’s releasing the ball probably a foot closer to the plate than a normal guy. Loney then froze on a beautiful curve before flying out harmlessly. The umpire’s high strike zone worked to Giolito’s advantage; his adreneline was definitely working against him and his pitches were trending up. Flores got a good swing on his curve, better than I would have liked to have seen. Weak fly ball opposite field for Nimmo and Giolito is through 2 having retired 6 straight. Interesting.
We go into live blogging mode briefly: here’s some thoughts during the bottom of the 2nd:
- At 8:30pm in my Vienna home it starts pouring; not a good sign for Giolito’s start. I’m guessing they may have a brief delay. Yup, like clockwork, 9pm the tarp goes out on the field. Well at least I now know how long it takes for a storm to get from my house to Nats Park 🙂
- Side tangent; why the F is Zimmerman hitting before Rendon?? In fact, why is Zimmerman hitting anything but like 8th right now? Rendon gets Giolito a 1-0 lead with a crushed triple to right center.
- Another tangent: boy seems like Harvey is short arming it. I think I’ve mentioned this before in a comment somewhere; his mechanics just do not look like they did last year, or prior to his injury. I wonder if this is just what he throws like now post TJ, or if he’s got some sort of mechanical issue.
- Why exactly are they pitching to Espinosa with Giolito on deck? That was kind of dumb. The kid has 9 at bats in like the last 5 years. I’m going to laugh if he gets a hit.
- Giolito is a little rusty at the plate. Of course, professional hitters can’t hit Harvey, so it isn’t like its any shameful thing that Giolito is swinging after the ball is in the catcher’s mitt. He manages a grounder to second that for a second looked like it might weasel its way through.
Top of the 3rd, he makes quick work of 8-9 hitters on weak grounders; now its second time through the lineup. He nibbled a little bit with Granderson and walked him on 4-straight; same with Cespedes. Maybe that’s fair; those are the two most dangerous hitters in the Mets lineup these days.
He’s pitching efficiently, he’s working contact and getting a lot of weaker outs. He’s not over throwing, hasn’t shown much above 96. But he’s in control; just 32 pitches through three complete.
I’m trying to gauge the movement on his fastball; I saw one really nice tailing fastball that might have been a two seamer, but mostly its straight 4-seamers.
True to scouting reports, he has a sick curveball; a true 12-6 curve, straight over the top and it drops straight down. Wow; that’s something you just don’t see that often. It curves enough that a pitch that looks way up is going to drop into the zone. Its no wonder why pundits rave about the hook. By the 4th inning Ramos was loving the curve and calling it more frequently.
He’s getting great defense behind him; Rendon, Murphy and Espinosa all have turned in really nice plays for him on grounders that were sometimes pretty sharply hit. But its all outs on the board.
Through 4 complete; 1 hit, two walks on just 45 pitches. 29 strikes, 16 balls (8 of which came on the two batters where he seemed to nibble/lose focus).
At this point, it started pouring, and when they didn’t remove the tarp after like 5 minutes you knew his night was done. Team wins easily on the night 5-0 and I wonder how much longer Giolito could have gone.
In the end, we’ve seen him throw a couple of clicks faster (he was 97 in spring), and we’ve certainly seen him with more strikeout capacity (353 Ks in 324 career minor league innings with almost exactly 9 k/9 in AA this year against the best hitters in the minors). I wonder if tonight’s outing was a managed gameplan kind of thing from the Nats brain trust; don’t over throw, pitch to contact, don’t worry about Ks or throwing max effort.
What did you guys see?