The month changed from April to May, but Carlos Rodóns dominance stayed the same.

Making his first start since April 29, the White Sox southpaw threw shutout baseball over six innings and 92 pitches during his team’s 3-0 victory over the Royals on Friday night at Kauffman Stadium.

Rodón (5-0) fanned eight with no walks, lowering his ERA to a microscopic 0.58. His overall numbers are video game impressive for the season, with two earned runs, one home run and 12 hits yielded over 31 innings against 44 strikeouts and nine walks.

“It’s rewarding now,” Rodón said. “Just going to say it again: I just want to keep going throughout this whole season. Looking forward to the next start. It’s been fun.”

Salvador Perez finished 3-for-3 against Rodón, but the rest of baseball is now 9-for-102 facing Rodón this season. He topped out at 98.2 mph on his four-seam fastball, per Statcast, recording 14 swings and misses. Ten of those came off the fastball, a pitch Rodón has used up in the zone to knock out opposing hitters consistently.

“Good fastball today,” Rodón said. “I think I gave up one hit on a fastball and four hits on changeups. I gave up some hits late in counts off the changeup. We’ll get that squared away and get that working better. It helps when the fastball is like that. I can get away with some mistakes.”

“Right now it's when in doubt, that fastball has been good for him,” catcher Zack Collins said. “At the same time, when you see a hitter cheating to it, you can throw the changeup. He's throwing a lot of changeups for strikes, and then he has that wipeout slider. He's getting that curveball over for strike one a lot. The way he's going right now, there's nothing I can do wrong almost back there."

Royals starter Brad Keller held the White Sox hitless though four innings before Collins broke the drought with a solo blast to center in the fifth. Adam Eaton singled home Tim Anderson and José Abreu doubled home Eaton in the sixth, which was more than enough support for Rodón.

Collins’ home run was just the 26th of the season for the White Sox (17-13), who rank last in that category in the American League. But the starting pitching continued its stinginess, with Rodón extending the group’s scoreless streak to 20 1/3 innings.

Codi Heuer and Aaron Bummer pitched scoreless seventh and eighth innings before closer Liam Hendriks, who gave up two hits, worked out of a bases-loaded jam in the ninth for his sixth save. It’s only a 30-game sample size, a sample size leaving Chicago alone atop the American League Central, but the White Sox appear to have the AL’s best pitching topped by Rodon’s brilliance.

“I'm not surprised that we have three top, known top guys in the game with [Lucas] Giolito, Lance [Lynn] and [Dallas] Keuchel and obviously [Dylan] Cease has thrown well in his last two starts. He's thrown well really in all of his starts,” Collins said. “He's just had a couple things go wrong here and there his first couple of times.

“Before the season we were kinda wondering how Rodón was going to come into camp and how he was going to do through the year, but obviously he's one guy who has stepped up huge for us. He's out there and competing every time. He gave us a chance to win all five times he's been out there.”

Credit goes to pitching coach Ethan Katz and assistant pitching coach Curt Hasler for the work they’ve done with pitchers such as Rodón, but it’s the individual who makes it happen on the field. Although this season marks Tony La Russa’s first with Rodón, the White Sox manager was able to pinpoint what Rodón has accomplished after the club improved to 2-1 on this five-game road trip.

“The first step was to obtain the kind of delivery and consistency, The second one is to take it into a game and compete,” La Russa said. “Third is, and that's really the key to having a big year, big career, is he focuses on the next start.

“All those things, he keeps doing it. They add up to a real special season for him, for us, and that's what he's done. He's giving credit to Ethan. They really worked on getting it together and he worked all spring very slowly. He's got it and he's taking it out there every time. He's not settling for the last one, which is human nature a lot of times.”