About 12 hours earlier, Giolito and roomates Spencer Kieboom and Nick Lee had baked what Giolito called a “super brownie cookie combination,” the creation that came to Kieboom as they walked around Wal-Mart yesterday. A layer of cookie dough, a layer of brownies, and some topping all went into the oven for what was supposed to be 30 minutes at 375 degrees. Four sets of “five-more-minutes” later, the middle still had a little more give than they’d hoped.

The clunkily named creation was the second installment in an accidental baking series that began last week, when Giolito was struck with sudden inspiration.

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“One of the first days, he was like ‘I just wanna make a cake!’ ” said Lee, a left-handed reliever. “We were like, ‘Okay, just bake a cake!’” Lee, like Giolito, is in his first major league camp. Kieboom roomed with Giolito for seven months in Viera when they were both rehabbing from Tommy John surgeries and caught him in several levels of the Nationals organization. He is in his second big league camp. Both watched with a mix of concern and anticipation as the 6-6 right-hander, the player projected to anchor the Nationals rotation for years to come, Baseball America’s fifth-best prospect in all of baseball, realized he didn’t have Pam for what he thought were probably not non-stick pans.

“I was like, this is gonna be a disaster,” Kieboom said. “So I had to try to step in to help him out a bit.”

Giolito credits Kieboom with doing “more than people realize.” Lee said Giolito would be “nowhere” without his catcher. As it happened, much of the first cake stuck to the pan anyway. But in spring training, as coaches and players will tell you, it’s not always about results.

“My biggest enjoyment isn’t even the eating part,” Lee said. “It’s watching Lucas try to follow directions.”

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Part of Giolito’s potential is his poise. He is mature beyond his 21 years, comfortable in the spotlight and under pressure on the mound. But in the kitchen — where Lee said Giolito thought the oven was breaking when it beeped to indicate pre-heating was complete, then thought it was off when the lights in the coils went out — he is still developing composure.

“I don’t handle it as well as I do baseball failure,” Giolito said.

“He sort of freaks out,” explained Lee, who watched Giolito pace around the apartment mixing dough, complaining that his arm was tired, then went to play video games while his project cooked and cooked and cooked, missing the beeping of the timer with his headphones on, leaving Lee to check on it instead.

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“It’s a joint effort,” Giolito said. “I wouldn’t say I’m like the baker guy and those two are just hanging out.”

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At first, Giolito just wanted to make a cake. But the Twitter response made the trio decide to try again.

“I thought it’d be cool, that people would enjoy it,” Giolito said. “I didn’t know that it would blow up like that. A lot of people were liking it.”

“We figure it’s kind of fun. It’s fun to interact with people,” Kieboom said. “They’re probably wondering, ‘what the hell do these guys do all the time?’ Besides rest and laying around, we’re baking.”

People tweeted suggestions at Giolito — “some really intricate stuff,” he said — but for now, he just wants to hit line drives, starting next week. Kieboom says he expects finished products to get better, though Giolito is not a top baking prospect, and has plenty of developmental hurdles to clear before mastering the craft.