USA TODAY International Edition
For Giolito, lead role can wait
GLENDALE, ARIZ. Chicago White Sox pitcher Lucas Giolito, all 6- 6, 255 pounds of him, never caught the acting bug like the rest of his famed Hollywood family.
Sure, he has met some of the biggest stars in Hollywood and still has the purple lightsaber given to him by Samuel L. Jackson from Jackson’s Star Wars movie.
Giolito would occasionally help his mother, Lindsay Frost, practice her lines before movie shoots, where she played in nearly 50 movies or TV series, from
As the World Turns to Hill Street
Blues to Crossing Jordan. His father, Rick Giolito, was in the movie Hit the Dutchman and TV series such as Who’s the Boss,
Hunter and Jake and the Fatman. Giolito hasn’t watched all of
Seinfeld but caught the five episodes his grandfather Warren Frost appeared in as George Costanza’s fiancée’s father.
He loved Twin Peaks, where one uncle, Mark Frost, was the co- creator and another uncle, Scott, was a writer. He even volunteered to be an extra in the upcoming reboot of the series, but his real job got in the way of the filming schedule.
“I can’t give away too much, but there’s one scene where I could have fit in as extra,” Giolito says. “Unfortunately, they were filming during baseball season.”
Yet while Giolito has never had interest in the movie business and hated even being in school plays, he’s hoping to make his own reality TV show, the one in which a prized pitching prospect is a failure at the start of his major league career but bounces back and emerges as the star everyone envisioned.
Stay tuned to The Revenge of Lucas Giolito.
Giolito, a frustrating enigma on the powerful Washington Nationals pitching staff a year ago and discarded in the offseason in the Adam Eaton trade, is one of the faces of the Chicago White Sox’s rebuilding project.
“The trade, to be honest, was like an immediate breath of fresh air,” Giolito, 22, tells USA TODAY Sports. “I’m still young, and my career is just getting started, but last year I dealt with so much adversity. I moved up and down so many times between the big leagues and Triple- A last year, I never really got a feel. I never really settled in.”
Giolito, the third- ranked prospect in baseball a year ago with his upper- 90s fastball and bigbreaking curveball, made his major league debut June 28 vs. the New York Mets — yielding one hit in four innings in a 5- 0 win. By the time the year ended, he had been promoted and demoted four times. The gaudy numbers he put up at three levels in the minor leagues last year ( 1151⁄ innings, 3 104 hits, 116 strikeouts, 2.97 ERA) morphed into ugliness in the big leagues— 6.75 ERA, 26 hits, 18 runs, 12 walks, 11 strikeouts, 211⁄ 3 innings, .988 OPS to the 101 hitters faced.
“Every start was like I have to do well or I’m going to get sent down to Triple- A,” Giolito says. “The team wanted to win, and if I wasn’t going to give them an opportunity to win, they wouldn’t want me there. It made sense.
“The Nationals really wanted a championship, and they still do. That’s why I think they made all of the trades they did, to get guys who already are contributing at the big- league level and making an impact. I expected to make that impact, too. It just didn’t happen.”
Giolito, projected to open the year at Class AAA Charlotte, has been told to start acting like himself on the mound. Forget the adjustments the Nationals asked him to make. It’s fine to revert to the short leg kick and short stride. Just go back to being comfortable again.
“That’s why I’m happy to be here,” Giolito says. “I feel like I can take my time to get settled. I want to be able to pitch in the big leagues, and if I get into a basesloaded situation, I want to be able to pitch out of that. I don’t want to feel like the hook is coming. I want to prove that as a starting pitcher I can get out of a jam early in the game and I can give you another four solid innings.
“I know I have the stuff to pitch really well in the big leagues, but when I got into jams last year, I didn’t really make an adjustment. I was able to control the pace of the game in the minors, but I wasn’t able to slow it down in the big leagues. I should have taken deep breaths and stepped off the mound. I learned a lot from those failures.”
Ironically, the entertainment industry that never intrigued him growing up is providing lessons in helping him overcome failure. His parents tell him about the countless roles they auditioned for and didn’t get. There were all those scripts written by his uncles that were rejected. Hollywood is filled with setbacks.
Diminished confidence. Heightened frustration. Selfdoubt. It’s the fabric of Hollywood. And it’s those who best recover from failure who turn out to be the brightest stars.
“Film and television has been inundated in my life since I was a little kid,” Giolito says. “It seems like everybody in my family is involved in the industry but me. ... But I never wanted to really be involved in it. I fell in love with baseball early, and once I got serious, my dad really pushed me.”
Maybe one day, when his baseball days are over, he can lean back on his family’s interests. Giolito has a passion for the video gaming industry, just like his dad. He can barely go a day without playing Rocket League, the ultracompetitive soccer game on cars.
His mom has become an accomplished painter whose work can be seen at Staples Center, where she did paintings of Kobe Bryant’s retirement ceremony and the Los Angeles Kings. Sorry, but Giolito can barely hold a paint brush, let alone write a legible essay with a pen.
Now, if you’re talking about being a potential movie and TV critic, maybe you have something. He has a critical eye after learning his craft from Ted Walch, his cinema studies teacher at Harvard- Westlake School in North Hollywood, Calif.
He gets a sneak preview of movies from his mother, a member of the Screen Actors Guild, catching as many as he can during his spare time.
While La La Land might have won seven Golden Globes and received 14 Academy Award nominations, let’s just say those involved in the film might be relieved that Giolito is a pitcher and not on any voting committee.
“I liked La La Land, but a lot of people hyped it up to be super amazing,” he says. “I thought it was a good musical, but it didn’t really blow me away.”
For now, life as a TV and film critic can wait.
He has his own comeback story to write, fueled by a conversation with Nationals pitching coach Mike Maddux at the conclusion of last season.
“He sat me down,” Giolito says, “and said, ‘ Look at this, these are the stats of my brother ( Greg, a four- time Cy Young winner who won 355 games).”
Giolito stared in disbelief: 8- 18 with a 5.59 ERA over his first two seasons with the Chicago Cubs.
“A lot of guys struggle when they first come up,” he says Mike Maddux told him. “Not everybody just shows up and deals. Just keep working hard. Keep your head up. You’ll be fine.”
Says Giolito: “That meant a lot to me. It was an amazing conversation.”
His talent is why the White Sox insisted on Giolito in the Eaton trade. They think that when they’re ready to start winning again, perhaps in 2019, Giolito will be one of their frontline starters leading the charge.
“He gets to start fresh here,” White Sox general manager Rick Hahn says. “He doesn’t have to walk around here with that firstround expectation. Given where we are in our competitive cycle right now, the need for him at the big- league level isn’t there yet. We’re not a team that needs to win every game and take some chances or cut some corners on development to win today’s game. We’re going to be able to take our time and let him get back to where he was before.
“Hopefully we get to the point in the not- too- distant future where Washington is at right now, where every big- league win is essential, and you have October aspirations.
“And when we do, we hope Lucas is a big part of that.” Giolito vows to be ready. “I feel a lot more prepared now,” he says. “I’m more relaxed, letting everything be free. Hopefully I’ll be back up to the big leagues and making an impact as soon as possible. I want to show them who I am.”
The Lucas Giolito story is in production, and it be might be awhile before the release date, but he’s confident it will be well worth the wait.