Good Talk

Apparently, White Sox starter Lucas Giolito sat down with owner Jerry Reinsdorf this week for a heart-to-heart (theoretically possible, if you use the narrowest of definitions for Reinsdorf), and now all is right with the world. Good. Seriously. Giolito was upset that management couldn’t close a $50,000 gap between sides during salary negotiations and, instead, went in the other, lower, direction once it came time to file numbers for arbitration. Now, Giolito has what he feels is a fair contract along with a sense of being valued by ownership. “I love this team, there’s nowhere else I want to be,” the right-hander told reporters yesterday after the agreement was announced. Again, good. Why? Because Giolito is the linchpin for any success the Sox hope to have in the years ahead, note the plural. He’s the horse whisperer here, with Dylan Cease and Michael Kopech two impressionable ponies following in the rotation. If they commit to the craft of pitching the way Giolito has, Sox fans can dream of the second coming of Glavine/Maddux/Smoltz, only to the South Side instead of Atlanta. If Giolito walks after 2023, Sox fans will face the likelihood of the team going back to a patch-and-pray approach to starting pitching. I’m having problems enough right now watching Yoan Moncada strike out at-bat after at-bat. I don’t need any extra worries, thank you very much.