The San Diego Padres have continued to strike gold with multiple signings this year.
The Padres built a more well-rounded team around its stars, and this included bringing in significant depth across the board.
San Diego has already done well with many of the players the front office brought in, and another has now emerged for the team.
Right-hander Lucas Giolito, who signed with the team early into the new season following a long free agency period, has made two starts so far, and has looked the part.
The right-hander fired five shutout innings against the Athletics in his second start, only allowing four hits and striking out two. His performance was very impressive, and it lowered his ERA to 2.70 for the season in the two outings.
Padres manager Craig Stammen weighed in on his performance after the fact, giving praise to the veteran starter. Having a veteran like this that Stamman can depend on is massive, and he could be given more leeway as the year goes on.
"He just battled," Stammen said . "With his competitiveness, knew he was never out of it, knew he was just one pitch away. Those are all things you can rely on as a veteran pitcher, being mentally tough."
With the performance from Giolito, the Padres were able to take the series from the Athletics, helping the team bounce back after a series loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Padres were able to keep the Athletics' bats at bay throughout, not allowing one run to score the entire game.
With all the questions around the Padres starting group coming into the season, having someone like Giolito makes a big difference. His patience in free agency allowed a team like San Diego to sign him, and the former All-Star is looking forward to helping this team win more games.
"I signed here to help the rotation and help this team win games, and I know how to win," Giolito said. "No matter how I'm feeling, I know how to grind through an outing. I've been doing this for long enough that I'm never going to like lose confidence or freak out on the mound if things aren't feeling right. I'm not that kind of guy. I'll just grind through."
However, Giolito said that he doesn't feel like he is fully "there" yet with his stuff on the mound. Giolito has battled through injuries over the last few years, but before that, he was one of the more intriguing pitchers in the game.
The 2019 All-Star was on track to be extremely dominant in his career, and now he has that chance again with the Padres. If he can keep up the strong outings, San Diego could have a real steal here for just a $3 million investment with incentives that can reach $8 million in total value.
"We've been putting a lot of work in behind the scenes, in between starts and this just hasn't quite taken hold in the game yet," Giolito said.
Soon, Giolito could be even better.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com/mlb/padres/onsi as Padres Already Struck Gold With $3 Million Starting Pitching Addition .
