Giolito cool as always in first Grapefruit League appearance

JUPITER, Fla. - Lucas Giolito had plenty of time to think about this, his first appearance against a major league club in a spring training game. Way more time than usual.

A starter throughout his amateur and now brief professional career, the 21-year-old found himself sitting nervously in the right field bullpen at Roger Dean Stadium this afternoon for 4 1/2 long innings before it was his turn to take the mound. Such is life for a young prospect in his first big league camp, with veterans Gio Gonzalez and Bronson Arroyo given the right to pitch the early innings and then take the early bus back to Viera.

"I was probably a little bit anxious early in the game, because I was relieving," Giolito said. "And it's not something I'm used to doing. Once I was out there, I felt fine. Pretty natural, pretty normal."

The results certainly confirmed that. Giolito's Grapefruit League debut was everything the Nationals hoped it would be: Two innings of high heat, a devastating curveball, precise command and nothing but zeroes on the scoreboard.

Giolito faced eight Marlins batters across the fifth and sixth innings. Two of them reached: Brady Shoemaker, who singled to open the sixth, and Xavier Scruggs, who reached on Wilmer Difo's throwing error in the fifth. Nobody else got the ball out of the infield. Don Kelly, Justin Maxwell and J.T. Realmuto never made contact.

"I'm not surprised," manager Dusty Baker said. "He has good control, good command and a good demeanor on the mound. It doesn't look like he gets easily rattled too much. If I had that stuff, I wouldn't be easily rattled either."

Oh, that stuff. Giolito's fastball registered in the mid-90s, with room still to grow a bit as the spring plays out. And his curveball, the pitch that caught Baker's eye during the first bullpen session he watched the young right-hander throw two weeks ago, was on point, producing one of his three strikeouts.

"It's something I always keep in my back pocket," Giolito said of the curveball. "The good thing now is I feel like I can throw it in any count and it will be an effective pitch. It used to only be a pitch I could throw if I was ahead: 0-2, 1-2, maybe 0-0. Now I'll throw it 2-1, behind in the count. I don't really care. I feel like I have pretty good control over that pitch now."

The 2012 first-round draft pick, recently named the top pitching prospect in baseball by multiple publications, knows his purpose in this camp. He's not trying to make the Nationals' opening day rotation. He's simply trying to learn everything he can from veteran teammates while also giving the new big league coaching staff a glimpse of his abilities for when his time really comes, perhaps sometime this summer.

And when that time comes, Giolito hopes the experience he's getting this spring will pay off, adding to everything else he has experienced in the four years since he was drafted.

If today's outing was a sign of things to come, the Nationals don't need to be worried at all about how the kid will deal with the big stage.

"Pitching in the Futures Game twice was beneficial; I pitched in front of like 35,000 people," he said. "So I kind of got that out of the way, as far as the nerves of being in front of people and pitching against the best players. I just want to go out there, pitch my game and do what I can do."