NEW YORK – The elbow injury that has kept Lucas Giolito off the Red Sox wild-card roster doesn’t seem as severe as originally thought, manager Alex Cora said today, nevertheless Giolito is not expected to pitch in October. It marks a major blow for the Red Sox rotation as Giolito and starter Brayan Bello traded placed throughout the season as the club’s second-best starter behind ace Garrett Crochet.
“It’s not as bad as we thought in the beginning,” Cora said. “But we’re still gathering information. Hopefully it’s just rest, but obviously, it doesn’t seem like he’s going to be able to pitch in October.” Giolito missed all of last season recovering from an internal brace procedure. Yesterday, he visited Dr. Keith Meister, who performed the surgery, for a re-evaluation.
Giolito posted a 3.41 ERA through 26 starts this season, missing the first month with a minor hamstring strain. He’d been a key piece of the rotation, but over his last few starts, his walk rate climbed and his velocity had dipped. Cora said Giolito thought it was normal wear-and-tear late in the season, but had trouble getting through a bullpen over the weekend and alerted team doctors.
“It’s tough,” Cora said. “He was one of the best we had. He threw the ball extremely well. It makes me wonder how banged up he was lately. Especially with the velo and command it seems like he wasn’t on point for a while there, but we got other guys that are capable, and now we just got to continue. Just another obstacle right in our journey. But here we are, and we got to go.”
In his place, Cora suggested rookie Connelly Early may start Game 3 in New York, if needed, but kept the door open.
“We’ll see what we are (ahead of Game 3),” Cora said. “But there’s a good chance it’s Connelly. But we have to take care of the first two games and we’ll see where we are at.”
In his first four major league starts, Early has a 2.33 ERA with 29 strikeouts and four walks in 19 1/3 innings.