Chicago White Sox's Giolito finishes off marvelous May

It started with an horrific display of pitching.

Before the Chicago White Sox faced the Royals at Guaranteed Rate Field on Tuesday night, one of the club's employees of the month took the mound for the ceremonial first pitch.

It was a wild pitch - in the extreme literal sense - and the baseball plunked a Sox team photographer standing about 10 feet to the left of the mound.

Thanks to yet another stellar outing from Lucas Giolito, it ended with much better pitching.

Shaking off an early blemish, Giolito capped a terrific month of May with a solid start in the White Sox's 4-3 victory over Kansas City.

"I think it's mostly confidence," the 24-year-old righty said. "Just going out there and it's like my best stuff against your best stuff. I'm just going to let it rip in the zone.

"I have a lot more of that mentality versus years past, when it was like, 'Ahh, how am I going to get this guy out?' It's just going out there with confidence."

After giving up a 3-run homer to Alex Gordon in the first inning, Giolito settled in and wound up going 8 innings.

"He's using all of his pitches and they are all coming out the same tunnel," catcher James McCann said. "Hitters aren't able to look for one certain pitch or one certain location. He's been using both sides of the plate, going up and going down.

"When you have four plus pitches like he does and he's using them to the ability he is, it's hard as a hitter to choose which one to hit."

In May, Giolito is 5-0 with a 1.74 ERA and 46 strikeouts in 41⅓ innings. Last season, he had the highest ERA (6.13) in the majors and the most walks (90) in the American League.

"It's been a long road," he said. "I'm happy that I'm able to make the adjustments I need to make mid-game, pitch to pitch, executing pitches. It's what I knew I had in me somewhere. It just kind of took a long time to figure it out."

Before Giolito took the mound the White Sox and Royals resumed Monday's game, which was suspended by rain and a swamped infield in the bottom of the fifth inning.

With the score still tied at 1-1 with the bases loaded and one out in the bottom of the ninth, Yolmer Sanchez came through with an RBI single as the Sox won 2-1.

Kansas City had five pulled-in infielders defending Sanchez, who drove a pitch into center field.

"Bases loaded, don't try to do too much," Sanchez said. "Just get a good pitch and hit it hard."