Lucas Giolito is not a morning person. He never has been, he said. As a kid, he stayed up late reading. As an adult, it’s more about video games. Either way, rising early is not his forte, and those unfortunate occasions when it is necessary require concerted effort — effort he managed to muster in recent days.
“My excuse is I prime myself for 7 p.m. being my locked-in hours,” Giolito said Sunday afternoon. “Obviously you have to make an adjustment for a day like today.”
And so, in the leadup to Sunday, a 6-1 Red Sox win over the Astros, Giolito prepped himself for the unusual 11:35 a.m. start time, part of MLB’s high-dollar discount with Roku — a streaming platform carrying the game in an exclusive national window. He went to bed early, woke up early, and, most importantly, “got outside and moved around.”
It seemed to work. Giolito delivered his longest start in nearly four years, eight innings of one-run ball carrying the Red Sox to a fifth consecutive victory and seventh in eight games. He gave up just three hits and a walk.
The lone blemish was Carlos Correa’s home run, on a 92-mile-per-hour fastball left over the middle of the plate in the fourth inning. Giolito retired 14 of his next 15 batters to finish his outing.
“I felt like he was getting better throughout the game,” catcher Connor Wong said. “For him not being a morning person, he did really good.”
Danielle Parhizkaran/Globe Staff
That validated the decision by the Red Sox (62-51) and Giolito to have the righthander take the ball at all. Amid their recent rotation rejiggering — a demotion, an acquisition, extra rest for ace Garrett Crochet — manager Alex Cora slotted in Dustin May for his team debut in this finale against Houston.
That would have bumped Giolito all the way to Wednesday against the Royals, more than a week after his previous outing. Giolito made his preference clear: He wanted to pitch Sunday, on regular rest. Rest makes rust, so he tries to avoid that.
“You saw it with the All-Star break. That was nine days off,” said Giolito, who pitched poorly against the Cubs in the first game back from the break. “I really hate it. I’ve always been a proponent of ‘cancel the All-Star break.’ That’s never going to happen, but I like pitching every fifth day.
“If it has to be the sixth day, so be it, with an off day or something like that. But I’ve always preferred pitching every fifth day. So presented with the opportunity to skip the morning game and pitch a few days later, or pitch the morning game — as much as I don’t like mornings, I’m going to take the morning game.”
Giolito has a 3.57 ERA on the season, 2.03 over the past two months.
“He’s been amazing,” Cora said.
“There have been a couple of times where we felt like we really needed a win, and he stepped up for us,” said Trevor Story. “Today was one of those days, too.”
The game turned during a six-run bottom of the fourth, a total meltdown for Astros lefthander Framber Valdez (6 innings, 6 runs, 4 earned) and a series of fortunate events for the Sox.
Roman Anthony jumpstarted the rally with a leadoff double off the Green Monster. Romy Gonzalez’s walk gave them two on with no outs.
Story’s soft single to right field brought in the tying run, and he advanced to second on Jesús Sánchez’s ill-advised throw home, which had no chance of nabbing Anthony. Ceddanne Rafaela’s single through the drawn-in infield put the Sox ahead.
Then it got wacky: a run-scoring balk by Valdez, a wild pitch by Valdez, a Abraham Toro single on a swinging bunt slow roller up the third-base line, a Wilyer Abreu actual sacrifice bunt that Valdez misplayed for an error, a passed ball by catcher Yainer Diaz, and a Connor Wong sacrifice fly to right for his second RBI of the year. Rob Refsnyder’s groundout brought in Abreu for the sixth run.
“We’ve been on the other side of those games: not playing defense, not holding runners, not doing a good job,” Cora said. “Today we took advantage of certain things, put the ball in play when we needed to. … All the things you work on in spring training showed up today. I love when they banger homers and all that, but it tells me that we’re in a good place right today.”
Giolito said: “I gave up a big home run that shifted the momentum in the Astros’ favor, and we answered back immediately with just fantastic at-bats, running everything out, hustling, playing really lock-down defense.”
The Astros (62-50) had no answers — Sunday or all weekend. The teams will match up again, in Houston, on Aug. 11-13.
“We just have that edge of, no matter what’s going on early in the game, midway through the game, even late in the game,” Giolito said, “we know we can win.”
Tim Healey can be reached at timothy.healey@globe.com. Follow him @timbhealey.
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