White Sox 6, Rays 2: Lucas Giolito strikes out 10

Last time out, Lucas Giolito picked up his first MLB win.

This time out, Giolito strung together two strong starts for the first time in his big-league career.

Giolito threw seven innings of one-run ball, limiting the Tampa Bay Rays to a Lucas Duda homer, two other hits and a walk while striking out 10. The Sox offense made its hits count. Six of the eight hits went for extra bases, including a pair of homers. As a result, the White Sox were able to take two of three from a Tampa Bay team that really needed to win the series.

Giolito leaned heavily on his fastball the first time through, and when Duda caught up to the high heat that Giolito successfully deployed over the first three innings for a solo shot, it looked like he might have to shift to more breaking stuff.

Not necessarily, it turns out. Giolito was predominantly a fastball-changeup pitcher for the entire afternoon, as 80 of 103 pitches fit those descriptions. What separated this outing from his debut -- besides the results, obviously -- is that he threw enough sliders (14, eight strikes) and curveballs (nine, three strikes, two whiffs) to make it look like more of a conscious decision.

Sure enough, true Rays threats were few and far between. They strung together a few hard-hit balls in the third and fourth innings, but Giolito quieted the contact afterward. He only faced one situation with two on, but that came with a two-out walk to Evan Longoria in the sixth. It did bring the red-hot Logan Morrison to the plate, but Giolito induced a weak grounder to the left side with a curve-slider-changeup sequence.

He then came out for the seventh and struck out the side to reach double digits for the first time.

He benefited from a White Sox attack that rattled Matt Andriese for three runs in the third and steadily built upon the lead afterward.

Andriese had little issue through the first two innings, and so Alen Hanson’s double might not have registered much with one out. Yolmer Sanchez grounded out, but Tim Anderson picked him up by lining a high changeup to center for an RBI single.

One pitch later, Jose Abreu -- fresh off a three-game break for a bruised elbow — looked healthy when he hit a cloud-scraping fly into the White Sox bullpen for his 27th homer of the year.

A big run came an inning later, as the Sox answered Duda’s blast by reclaiming the three-run cushion courtesy of doubles by Kevan Smith and Adam Engel. That restored order, and then Anderson took it from there.

In the fifth, Anderson hit a drive to center that barely cleared both the fence and the glove of a leaping Kevin Kiermaier for a solo shot. Anderson didn’t seem certain it was gone, so he rounded the bases at 80-percent speed, rather than a relaxed trot.

Two innings later, Hanson and Anderson took advantage of a matchup against a sidewinding lefty, as they both pulled doubles to left field off Adam Kolarek. Anderson’s third run-scoring hit capped off a big 3-for-4, two-run day from the second spot in the order.

Rick Renteria used Derek Holland in the eighth inning, but it’s on his throw day, so it’s hard to say whether he’s ruled out of the Tuesday start. Holland might have ruled himself out with his pitching, as he gave up a hit, a walk and a run over two-thirds of an inning, requiring Gregory Infante to strand a runner with a strikeout.

Record: 54-81 | Box score