FORT MYERS, Fla. – For Red Sox righty Lucas Giolito, the excitement of pitching in a game for the first time in a year wore off swiftly.
After throwing his first pitch of Tuesday’s 18-8 loss to the Phillies, the veteran starter felt tightness in his left hamstring and will undergo an MRI on Wednesday.
The initial feeling from Giolito and the training staff is that the injury is not serious. Red Sox manager Alex Cora didn’t rule out Giolito being able to make his next start.
Perhaps due to missing so much time following an internal bracing procedure on his right elbow, Giolito decided to pitch through the nagging hamstring during a 24-pitch first inning in which he lacked sharpness.
“First pitch of the game,” said Giolito. “Felt a little tight in my hamstring. I knew it wasn’t bad, so I just adjusted my front-leg mechanics a little bit just to get through and compete through the inning. It wasn’t pretty, obviously. It felt good to be back out there competing. We’ll just assess and do whatever those guys say over there and it shouldn’t be bad.”
Due to his high pitch count, Giolito would have only faced a batter or two in the second inning, but the team pulled him after learning of the hamstring issue.
Gioito said that preliminary strength tests with the training staff went well.
“I’ve pulled my hamstring before in my career a few times and this feels very minor,” Giolito said. “That’s basically what they were saying as well, the initial testing was really strong. Just an annoying little setback, I guess.”
While rotation members Brayan Bello and Kutter Crawford will open the season on the 15-day injured list, Giolito doesn’t expect to join them at this point.
Prior to Giolito’s Grapefruit League outing, Cora penciled him in to pitch the fifth game of the season at Camden Yards against the Orioles.
Was it hard for Giolito not to be dejected, even if Tuesday’s ailment was just a minor setback?
“You can’t have that attitude. It is what it is. Things happen. Injuries happen,” Giolito said. “I wouldn’t even categorize this as an injury, really, at this point. Just felt like it got tight on me. Just going to do the protocol, get it looked at, and it shouldn’t be too bad.”
Frustrating was perhaps a more accurate emotion than dejection.
“I’d like everything to just be sunshine and rainbows and feeling great but it’s not the way baseball works and the way life works sometimes,” Giolito said. “It’s just a little thing I have to work through.”
Giolito got to as high as 94 mph on the radar gun, but wasn’t really able to assess his outing because he wasn’t throwing with his usual mechanics.
“It’s hard to say, because I wasn’t throwing the way I normally throw, so obviously I was erratic,” Giolito said. “It was hard to throw strikes that way, especially with breaking balls. It felt good to be competing. It wasn’t the prettiest inning but I look forward to better ones ahead. Elbow feels great. Shoulder and elbow are in a really good spot. I think the work I’ve put in during the last year has paid off in that aspect. I feel very strong.”