CHICAGO -- The ball that Lucas Giolito threw to Salvador Perez in the third inning on Wednesday night might not have been a strike. It was near the top of the zone, a place Giolito likes to go with the spin he has on his fastball, but Perez saw it and swung away with two strikes.

He yanked it to left field and watched as it landed in the bleachers for home run No. 27 on the season. In the beginning of August, Perez matched his career high for home runs in a single season.

“To be hitting balls like he’s hitting, is pretty incredible,” Whit Merrifield said. “And he’s fun to watch. And I’m glad he’s on our team.”

Perez’s two-run shot and 2-for-4 night was part of an offensive onslaught in the Royals’ 9-1 win at Guaranteed Rate Field on Wednesday, evening the series and snapping their four-game losing streak with four homers in four different innings -- after scoring just two runs on 12 hits in their past three games.

Until Merrifield opened the game against Giolito with a single, stole third and went home on Ryan O’Hearn’s sacrifice fly in the first inning, the Royals hadn’t scored a run off a starting pitcher since Perez’s homer against Toronto’s Ross Stripling in the sixth last Friday. The urgency was there for the Royals, and they knocked Giolito around for four innings, scattering eight hits and six runs on homers from Perez, Edward Olivares and Michael A. Taylor. Ryan O’Hearn added a two-run shot in the seventh off the White Sox bullpen.

Perez has now homered 27 times in 106 games this season, tying the career high he set in 2017 and ‘18 in 129 games apiece. It also ties the club record for most home runs by a catcher that he set in both of those years, too, and he’s certainly on track to break that and then some with 56 games and nearly two months of the season to go.

The home run total is a testament to the season Perez is having, something that’s not a surprise after he hit 11 homers in 37 games in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season but still remarkable as a 31-year-old catcher who reached his 10-year service time milestone last week and somehow still seems to be getting better.

“It’s not surprising, only because we watch it every single day,” manager Mike Matheny said. “Not just in the games, but the stuff he’s doing even in his work. It looks different than other guys. We have some guys with serious power. Guys that can put on a show. But the way he can control the center of the field and control the barrel through and stay in the zone, and then the ability he has to hit pitches like today.

“I think he’s just figuring out something new. He’s figuring out how to be a better hitter. You’re talking about one of the better offensive players in the league that’s just now, I believe, finding another level.”

Perez is hitting the ball harder than ever this season; his average exit velocity of 93 mph ranks tied for 16th in the Majors. And while his homer Wednesday was pulled into left field, he’s focused this year on using all parts of the field when he’s at the plate, evidenced by the difference between his spray charts on Statcast from the 2018 season (his last full season) and ‘21.

“I feel great,” Perez said. “In my offseason last year, I was working with [hitting coaches] Mike Tosar and Terry Bradshaw to try to figure out what I need to get better, what I need to do. … I think in the past, I just tried to pull, pull, pull. But I listened to Bradsaw saying, ‘You can hit homers to right field.’ So I try to stay more middle, open up my front shoulder a little bit. Sometimes I do it too quick, like in my last at-bat when I hit the ground ball double play.”

Perhaps that’s the most impressive thing about the Royals veteran catcher. Even as Perez puts together a career-best year, he brings up things he wants to improve. He’d like to walk a little bit more. He sometimes misses pitches he knows he should be doing damage on. And above anything else, he works tirelessly on his defense.

As much as matching his home run total was important to him Wednesday, so too was guiding Royals starter Carlos Hernández through five innings of one-run ball in his second consecutive start against the White Sox, a stretch in which he’s now 2-0.

“Seriously, I don’t think about it,” Perez said of his home run total. “I just come to the plate trying to do my job. I feel like I think more and worry more about my defense, try to call a good game. Try to know the pitcher, all that. Believe it or not, sometimes I don’t think too much about hitting.”

He might not think about it much, but has Perez contemplated just how many homers he has in him this season?

“Hopefully I can hit 20 more before the season’s over,” Perez said with a smile. “You never know. … How about 30 more? I’m just trying to do my best.”