Giolito looks like old self in White Sox's win over Twins

Elsewhere in White Sox baseball news on Wednesday, the train kept rolling.

Emerging from a passing cloud cast by the Yermin Mercedes controversy and a 5-4 loss to the Twins Tuesday night after they led 4-0, the Sox edged Minnesota 2-1 at Target Field.

Lucas Giolito came into the game with a 1-4 record and 6.75 ERA over his last 5 starts.

The Sox's ace looked a lot more like his old self while pitching 8 innings and allowing 1 run - Nelson Cruz's solo homer in the third inning - on 2 hits to go with 11 strikeouts.

"Early in the game, I felt like I was searching a little bit," Giolito said. "A couple of leadoff walks, which are never acceptable in my book. I was able to pitch around those. As we went on, I feel like I got better.

"When I'm going good, that's generally how it goes. I was happy about that one. Now we move on to the next."

As he tries to regain the feel for his slider, Giolito has been leaning on his fastball and changeup.

The latter pitch was on prominent display against Minnesota, and the Twins swung and missed at 13 of his change-ups.

"I thought it was just coming out good today," Giolito said. "It was my go to put-away pitch. It looked like they were really trying to stay on the heater all day, no matter what I was throwing. So me and (catcher) Zack (Collins) just fell into a really nice rhythm recognizing that changeup was a difference maker. We kept going back to it and it was working."

The White Sox won 2 of 3 against the Twins and are feeling just fine heading into Thursday's day off.

"We just focus on the here and now," Giolito said. "We stay together, we support each other. Sometimes it's tough love, that's OK. But we're all here for each other each and every single day. All we care about is getting the best out of each other, getting the best out of ourselves and winning.

"And we're winning right now, so we're just going to keep on that path."