To what extent is Lucas Giolito back?

The Boston Red Sox entered the final week of the regular season with a single mat in the AL wild card game, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but it doesn’t. Boston and Detroit were 85-71, Cleveland and Houston were 84-72, while AL Central and two wildcard positions were the same, which were three situations of four intelligences. The factor is that the Astros have become very anemia lately, and the Tigers (actually ending with three games at Fenway) look like they can’t find the flashlight and their own shoes on the map right now, and you have to like the chance of Boston.

Our playoff odds give Sox an 89.9% playoff chance. That’s not something I think locks, but it’s very close. Close enough to know what their playoff rotation would look like.

The state of starting pitching – the ruthless nature of playoff baseball – almost no one is enough. Even great teams, these teams have thrown out dozens of draft picks and/or hundreds of millions of dollars as they find four healthy weapons that can give you 6 innings in October. Who can reliably claim that there is this now? The Dodgers may just not ask too many questions about what happens when the bullpen comes in. The sailors are likely to assume that Bryan Woo’s chest injury is safe.

But even the Phillies sell for $100 million, they are scrambling to get ahead. With Zack Wheeler out, were you going twice with Taiwan Walker in your order or was the command command command of Aaron Nola who swings? Are the Yankees staring at the potential Canlitler playoffs?

The Red Sox didn’t start with the wealth that started pitch depth, with an elbow injury to Tanner Houck, Richard Fitts and Dustin probably only making the pool lighter.

Garrett Crochet is a true trump card, a fanatical, eating monster. You will trade half of the farm system to the pitcher to acquire and luxury contracts to retain $170 million in contracts. I quickly put him in the first game of the playoff series (or Game 7) with anyone in the league. Ideals are not. 2 starters may have more strikeouts than Brayan Bello, whose FIP is over 4.00, but we’ve seen ground and pound hitters thriving in October.

After that, it becomes blurry. Did Alex Cora throw one of his rookies left-handed-Payton Tolle and Connelly into the fire early? Speaking of young left-handed, Kyle Harrison has only allowed one single in nine innings since returning to the profession.

Or can Lucas Giolito be launched in the playoffs?

I mean, you can, this is a free country. At least in this regard. In fact, the White Sox did start Giolito in playoff games in 2020 and 2021. He performed well in 2020 (7 innings, one inning, two hits, eight strikeouts) and was bad in 2021 (five walks, four runs in 4 1/3 innings).

But this was five years ago. If the Red Sox can rely on their starting pitchers to keep their own forms, Walker Buehler will spin rather than exit the organization altogether.

To be honest, this is the first time since 2021 that the 31-year-old Giolito has shot well enough to even play in a playoff rotation. In 2022 and 2023, he ran nearly 5.00 era. In fact, he is also good in the first two-thirds of 2023. Then, Angels eliminated as his last fanatic, and poured him on the save wire a month later.

Starting at 12 o’clock in the year, the Angels and Guardians claimed that his team, Giolito, allowed 21 home runs in just 63 1/3 of the innings, and the FIP was 6.87 on the 6.96 ERA. His club started with a 2-10 mark. Then, he sat down for the entire 2024 season after tearing the UCL for the second time.

Giolito, who played with Kevin Gausman and tonight’s Blue Jays, played well in this regular season: 10-4, with 3.46 ERA, and performed well in 25 games and 140 1/3 innings. I’ve made this before, but there are some pitchers who will get a team pass Playoffs and a team pitcher arrive The playoffs and the infrequent overlap between these two categories does not negate the importance of the latter. When the crochet started, the Red Sox was 22-9, when Bello started 16-12, and Giolito started 17-8. Without him, their location would be less secure.

That era is basically comparable to that of Gossman, and no one questioned whether he would get a playoff start for Toronto. Actually, Giolito is slightly above Gausman in ERA-81 to 83 when you consider the batsman friendly at Fenway Park.

Still, I’m worried about Giolito’s basic numbers.

That’s not great! This era is great, but Jolito’s strikeout rate has dropped by more than a third from his peak and by more than 20% from when he was knocked out before his injury. Batsmen chase less and touch more than in the Dark Ages.

72 pitchers have thrown 80 or more innings in the Grand Slam this year, and currently have a pulsating team in the playoffs. This isn’t a perfect proxy for the playoff starter – some late-stage rookies aren’t here, but include all kinds of injured or timed or invalid pitchers. But this will do for rough illustrations. This is how Giolito fits all key categories.

Look at it this way: 12 playoff teams multiplied by four rotation positions for each club equals 48 starting pitcher slots, and Giolito is there. Especially considering that Boston’s spin is not one of the more intense options. On Monday, some laughter named Kiley McDaniel ranked 14th in the playoff contenders and placed the Red Sox ninth. (I included the Rattlers on my roster, and Kiley didn’t. They only had single-digit playoff odds, but it wasn’t appropriate to exclude teams with only one game.)

The 48th starter of this team should Start the playoff game, right? In theory, yes. Actually, maybe not. Many teams, including the Red Sox, consider rookies, bullpen games or some kind of backpack situation. Giolito may have started a game, but when the first tough left-handed batsman expires for the second time, he gets tugged.

It would be a neat place to end the exploration of Giolito, but I was curious about the difference this year, and with 2023 (when he was awful) and 2021 (when he was awesome) (when he was awesome). Especially because there are few shocking differences in his tracks.

Giolito throws the same four balls at the same number of speeds (actually, because he only threw a few curve balls), but his results have been very different over the years.

As you can see, usually, Giolito’s stuff is the ticking sound of 2021. The pitch should be rotated slower. The knuckles should change faster. This is an annoying person, but it will happen to everyone sooner or later.

Although the fourth-seller has never been Giolito’s main weapon, the quality of the second-party stadium is different. His changes and sliders tied the batsman in knots in 2021, and now they are just average: fewer and higher quality of contact.

It’s a little weird, because Giolito’s change is much better than the 2021 handrail side movement, and the consistency of the action and his course position seem to be as good as it is now, if not better. Giolito’s arm angle has dropped several degrees since 2020-21, and his stretching time has been reduced by one or two inches. Maybe it’s something on the edge. Maybe the bats are getting faster or faster, or they are figuring out the pitcher who hasn’t changed a lot in the past five years.

If you don’t move forward, you’re standing still after all. Maybe Giolito should try adding the tool.