KANSAS CITY -- Lucas Giolito was the American League Pitcher of the Month for May, and the White Sox right-hander has somehow managed to take it up another notch so far in June.

By blanking the Royals on three hits over 7 2/3 innings on Saturday at Kauffman Stadium, Giolito has not allowed a run in 15 innings this month. He struck out a career-high 11 and needed only a two-run homer by Eloy Jiménez in the second inning to stop the White Sox three-game losing streak as Chicago prevailed, 2-0.

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Giolito has a personal eight-game winning streak, including wins in each of his last seven starts. His win streak is the longest by a White Sox starter since Chris Sale won his 2015 finale and the first nine starts of 2016.

Giolito departed after Whit Merrifield’s two-out single in the eighth having thrown a season-high 111 pitches. All 11 of his strikeouts came in the opening five innings, and he struck out the side in the second, third and fifth.

Call him an ace or call him a stopper. All the superlatives apply to Giolito these days.

“I’m just happy that it’s happening for him and for us,” White Sox manager Rick Renteria said. “He’s a young man that we had high hopes and expectations for when he was acquired. His outings have been fantastic. I think he is showing that he is part of some of the best pitchers in the Major Leagues at this moment.”

In what looked like an old-fashioned pitchers’ duel, the crisp game took only two hours, 26 minutes. Royals starter Brad Keller matched zeros with Giolito, except for the Jimenez homer.

“Both kids did a great job,” Renteria said. “Lucas was able to best [Keller], keeping them off-balance with his changeup.”

Giolito said his basic recipe was fastballs and sliders the first time through the order. Then he broke out the changeup later to keep the Royals’ hitters guessing.

“It ended up working well,” Giolito said. “We were able to keep them off-balance and get a lot of weak contact. Eloy hit that bomb for us. We got the two-run lead and went from there.”

The All-Star teams won’t be announced for a few weeks, but it’s hard to imagine Giolito building a more convincing case for himself to this point. In winning seven consecutive starts, Giolito has a 0.88 ERA over that span. Opponents are hitting .146 against him in those starts and he has allowed five hits or fewer and three runs or fewer in all of those outings.

“I’m just going out there with confidence every time and keeping it simple,” Giolito said. “It’s all about just executing the next pitch.”

The White Sox bullpen followed Giolito’s lead. With the tying run on base in the eighth, Aaron Bummer came on to retire Alex Gordon in a lefty-on-lefty matchup. Then Alex Colomé worked a perfect ninth for his 13th save.

“Today was the day we needed to put an end to a little skid,” Renteria said. “Lucas was the guy in the moment and he did exactly what you hoped he would do.”