Lucas Giolito injury scare gives Padres fans brief panic after first minor league outing

There are normal ways for a pitcher to begin his ramp-up with a new organization, and then there’s the Lucas Giolito route, which apparently involves taking a 103 mph comebacker near the face in low Single-A and walking away joking about it afterward.

Padres fans can exhale now. Giolito’s first minor league outing since signing with San Diego came Saturday with the Lake Elsinore Storm, and for a few very uncomfortable seconds, it looked like the Padres’ already-delicate rotation picture might have picked up another headache before this whole thing even had a chance. The 31-year-old right-hander pitched into the third inning against Visalia before exiting after being struck by a comebacker.

The good news, thankfully, is that Giolito seems to be fine.

After the outing, he told Marty Caswell that it was “just a little bruised up,” adding that it unfortunately got the wrong hand but felt fine. He even poked fun at the whole thing, calling it a fun return because nothing says welcome back to competition quite like a 103 mph missile coming back at your face.

Lucas Giolito avoids concerning injury after scary first outing in Padres system

Baseball is a deeply unserious sport sometimes. A pitcher can spend weeks building toward his first game action, get assigned to Lake Elsinore for a controlled ramp-up, and then immediately be reminded that the mound is less a workplace and more a danger zone with cleats.

For the Padres, the actual baseball part still matters. Giolito struck out four, allowed two runs on two hits and three walks, and threw forty of his sixty-three pitches for strikes over 2 2/3 innings. It wasn’t a spotless debut, but it also was never supposed to be. This was about getting him on a mound, seeing how the stuff played, and beginning the process of turning a recent signing into a real rotation option.

The Padres need innings and experience. They need someone who can eventually slot in and keep the back end of the rotation afloat. That’s why Saturday was such a weird snapshot of the Giolito experience. 

This could have been a miserable update. Instead, it became a brief panic followed by a pretty reassuring exhale. Giolito got through his first minor league outing with only a bruise, a few strikeouts, and a story that sounds much funnier after we know he’s alright.

The Padres will take that. Actually, they should probably take it and wrap him in bubble wrap before his next start, but that might be frowned upon by player development.

For now, Giolito’s ramp-up continues, the rotation help is still in play, and Padres fans can go back to worrying about the normal things.

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