Giolito after first start with White Sox: I feel like I belong

There are so many hurdles to clear before a rebuild gets off the ground, and one was set up in front of the Chicago White Sox Tuesday night.

Promising pitching prospect Lucas Giolito made his first start for the Sox in a 4-1 loss to the Minnesota Twins at Guaranteed Rate Field. As expected, the big right-hander soared through some points and stumbled through others.

"I felt good going in, confident," Giolito said. "I'd say just a few mistakes got me tonight, trying to go in with the heater and leaving it over the middle. Guys up here are going to hit mistakes. That's kind of what happened."

Acquired from the Washington Nationals in the Adam Eaton trade, the 23-year-old Giolito pitched 6 innings against the Twins and allowed 4 runs on 6 hits.

Three of them cleared the fences, and that's how Minnesota scored all of its runs.

Jorge Polanco and Kennys Vargas hit solo homers in the fourth and fifth innings and Eddie Rosario added a 2-run shot in the sixth.

All 3 home runs were on fastballs.

"I was essentially pitching with only the fastball a lot of the time, just trying to move it to both sides of the plate, pitch up when need be and for the most part we were able to do that," Giolito said. "You just can't leave it over the middle."

Giolito threw 99 pitches in his Sox debut and 69 were fastballs. He had trouble throwing his curveball and changeup for strikes.

When the off-speed pitches do come, the White Sox might have a top-end starter on the roster.

That is certainly Giolito's goal.

"I feel like I belong," he said. "I feel like my stuff plays. I'm happy I didn't walk anyone tonight. I was able to command the fastball pretty well, but fastball-changeup was pretty much all I had. I wasn't throwing the curveball as well as I would have liked, but I'm going to work on that for the next start and hopefully be able to command that pitch a little better."

Manager Rick Renteria was very impressed with his new starting pitcher.

"Excellent," Renteria said. "I thought it was a very positive outing. Truthfully, maybe we had two innings where we had opportunities to really possibly open up the game and we didn't do that. Lucas, I thought, threw the ball very, very well.

"Fastball was very good. He was using his breaking ball. He threw some that were a little short, but all and all, I thought his mound presence, his attack of the strike zone, was very good."

Every good major-league pitching coach preaches working off the fastball, so Giolito already has shown he can clear that hurdle.

"That's basically what happened tonight," he said. "The curveball wasn't feeling as well as I would have liked, but I was able to get the fastball in for the most part. It's probably the most I've pitched off my fastball the second half of the season.

"It felt good. The fastball felt good. I just need to keep working on getting that off-speed stuff over."