Red Sox Pitcher Reveals How He Deals With Bad Outings

The life of a starting pitcher can be difficult. Your efforts only impact the game about once a week. If you have a bad outing, you have to sit and wait for your next turn to try to turn things around.

Lucas Giolito has had a yo-yo season. The Red Sox starters ERA sits at 5.45, but half of his appearances qualify as quality starts. Most recently, he threw six shutout innings against the Tampa Bay Rays. In his prior outing, he didn’t make it out of the second inning.

This has been a pattern for Giolito this season. He follows up a good start with a blow up outing, and comes back with a solid appearance.

Giolito spoke to Rob Bradford on the Baseball Isn’t Boring podcast and talked about how he deals with a bad outing.

“I envy the guys who can just flush it immediately,” Giolito said. “It completely changes how I am for a 24 hour period. I’m very angry. Very disappointed in myself.”

Giolito went on to say he holds himself to a very high standard. He also explained that he immediately starts trying to figure out how to get better.

“I think my mechanics were not in a good place right when I came back to the big leagues and I was trying to fight through it.”

Giolito mentioned how he was throwing from a lower slot than he’d like to. Looking closer at the numbers, his arm angle rose from his previous starts. While Giolito will have to maintain those mechanics, identifying the issues and correcting them is a good first step on the road to consistency.