On Monday, Boston Red Sox starter Lucas Giolito turned in his best outing of his tenure with the team. The righty threw six innings of shutout baseball and struck out 10 in the Red Sox’s 2-0 win over the Seattle Mariners. It came on the back of his fastball. 52% of his 91 pitches were fastballs, an increase in his May usage, when he hovered around 40%. He commanded the pitch masterfully, placing the majority of his heaters up in the zone. Even better, his velocity was up. His average of 94.5 mph was a tick and a half above his season mark. The Red Sox may have identified a weakness in the Seattle offense by using such a high volume of fastballs. Going into the game, the Mariners’ whiff rate against right-handed four-seamers ranked 27th in the league. Their weighted on-base average ranked 23rd. While Giolito dotted the top of the zone with his four-seam, his secondary pitches did their part as well. His slider lived in the zone and returned both called strikes and whiffs. His always excellent changeup was, well, excellent. The slow ball earned a 44% whiff rate. Even his seldom-used curveball showed up for a couple of whiffs. Giolito recently mentioned finding some mechanical issues that affected his performance. He appears to have cleaned those mechanics up. 10 strikeouts and 18 whiffs were both season highs. Red Sox starting pitchers have pitched six or more innings in each of the last seven games. It’s a welcome change for a group that struggled to get out of the fifth inning for a spell. Walker Buehler takes the ball on Tuesday for the second game against Seattle. He’s coming off a start in which he pitched seven innings and allowed three runs against the Tampa Bay Rays.
