Bounces go Lucas Giolito's way as Padres beat Athletics

Lucas Giolito expects to throw harder as he wades into the season. He expects to throw better, too. In the meantime, he expects to do what he did Saturday.

"I signed here to help the rotation and help this team win games, and I know how to win," Giolito said after dancing around nine baserunners through five shutout innings in a 2-0 win over the Athletics. "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."

Which is precisely what he did in front of a sellout crowd of 42,616 at Petco Park to win a second straight start in a Padres uniform.

He walked (five) three more than he struck out, allowed four singles and was picked up by three double plays behind him and an offense that was more patient than potent in winning with two or fewer hits for the first time since June 2017.

Funny enough, neither of their two hits plated runners, either, as the Padres worked eight walks, scored on a hit-by-pitch with the bases loaded in J.T. Ginn's wild second inning and added a run in the third on Ty France's RBI groundout.

The narrow margin didn't faze Giolito, who sidestepped traffic in every inning before allowing the Padres' victory formation - Jeremiah Estrada, Adrián Morejón, Jason Adam and Mason Miller - to cover the final four frames. Miller's NL-leading 16th save via a perfect ninth was at the expense of an Athletics team that traded him to the Padres at last year's deadline.

"It was a very unexpected way that game went," Padres manager Craig Stammen said. "We couldn’t get the big hit in that situation, but we definitely took great at-bats and worked a lot of walks and a hit by a pitch, so we made him work really hard - 45 pitches in that second inning definitely gave us the advantage. We definitely had won the time of possession, as far as that goes, if you want to go on football terms. But we got our safety and got out of there."

The start was the 31-year-old Giolito's second since joining the Padres rotation on Sunday in Seattle. He threw four shutout innings in that debut before allowing three runs in the fifth inning of an 8-3 win in which he averaged 90.4 mph with his four-seamer, about 3 mph lower than last year.

Giolito sat a tick below that on Saturday - 90.2 mph - as his velocity dipped as low 87.6 mph in the fourth inning, but he made up for it in savviness and some BABIP luck.

After all, Giolito walked five in five innings, allowed four hits and somehow did not allow any of those baserunners past third base.

Give France a big assist as he was part of three double plays that helped Giolito out of each of the last three innings he pitched.

"I’ve been appreciating Ty France for a long time," Giolito said. "We played together on the same travel team in high school. I mean, he’s a Gold Glover for reason, you know, a fantastic first baseman. Today in general, I mean, the defense picked me up. Freddy (Fermin) picked me up behind home plate. I was obviously off, kind of in and out throughout the game and they did a wonderful job taking care of business out there when the ball was put in play.

"Got me through five innings."

In the third inning, after a leadoff walk, Nick Kurtz bounced a ball to first base that France snagged and tagged the runner retreating to first base before stepping on the bag.

In the fourth, Giolito walked the first two batters, got a pop-up and then walked another before getting Jeff McNeil to ground another ball to France. This time, the Gold Glover threw immediately to second base for the second out and got back to first base in time for Sung-Mun Song's throw to record the final out of the inning.

Darell Hernaiz led off the fifth with a single and was immediately doubled up at first base on Carlos Cortes' lineout to France. Giolito gave up another single to Kurtz but escaped a scoreless fifth inning with a pop-up of Shea Langeliers to hand a 2-0 lead to the Padres bullpen.

Giolito threw 47 of his 86 pitches for strikes in putting himself in position to win after a four minor-league-start ramp-up after signing last month.

Needless to say, he's a work in progress who's finding a way to help a rotation that's lost Nick Pivetta, Germán Márquez and Matt Waldron to injury and still waiting for Joe Musgrove's return from Tommy John surgery.

"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. "Just feeling like I was getting out of my legs and starting to kind of lunge forward and that leads to a big lack of command, so, as well as the stuff being diminished. We were able to lock it in when we needed to and then we had the big plays behind us."

The Padres didn't collect their first hit until after Ginn had exited.

The Athletics' right-hander walked six batters and hit another - Fernando Tatis Jr. with the bases loaded in the second - but hadn't allowed a hit when he was pulled with one out in the third inning with just 40 of his 73 pitches landing for strikes.

Jackson Merrill, in the lineup for the first time since leaving Wednesday's game with back discomfort, greeted left-hander Jose Suarez with a double. France's ensuing groundout opened a 2-0 lead.

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This story was originally published May 23, 2026 at 9:32 PM.