CHICAGO -- White Sox manager Tony La Russa likes to remind people his players are men, not machines.

Occasionally, performances from even the best of those men go a little off-kilter, as happened to Lucas Giolito during a 9-1 loss to the Royals on Wednesday night at Guaranteed Rate Field. Giolito, the White Sox Opening Day starter, yielded three home runs over four innings after giving up one home run over 31 1/3 innings covering five starts during a solid July mound effort.

"I felt fine, but I made way too many mistakes and they didn't miss them. They just raked,” Giolito said. “I was pulling off pretty bad. And with the slider, especially, I was in-between, I couldn't get the good one going. It was either hanging or ball to ball in the dirt."

The Royals scored in all four innings against Giolito, with the last three innings coming via long ball influence. Edward Olivares hit a solo homer in the second off a 3-2 changeup, Salvador Perez’s 27th homer was a two-run shot in the third on a 3-2 four-seamer and Michael A. Taylor hit a solo blast in the fourth on a 1-1 curve.

None of the three home runs had an xBA above .300, according to Statcast. But they still added up to the sixth time in Giolito’s career where he has allowed three home runs.

“A guy goes out there 30-some times, you are going to have a game like that where you are just not right. You are going to have several,” La Russa said. “Sometimes you get away with it for an inning or two and today early on just a little bit, like Carlos Rodón the other day in Kansas City, early on they get you and before you are right, it’s not your day.”

“Move on,” said Giolito, who has done a good job of quickly putting a bad start behind him and focusing on the next assignment. “It sucks because I'm the reason we lost tonight, and so it's a brutal feeling. But just use that as motivation for the next one."

Giolito (8-8) gave way to Matt Foster in the fifth, after allowing six runs on eight hits over four innings and 81 pitches. The White Sox scored a run in the fourth on José Abreu’s 19th home run this season and the 217th of his career, but their offense was limited to four hits overall against Carlos Hernández (3-1) and four relievers.

Andrew Vaughn had two hits and a walk to log his 20th multi-hit game of the season. He also raised his slash line to .405/.468/.643 over his last 13 games and .343/.389/.588 with six home runs, 16 RBIs and 18 runs scored over his last 30.

There wasn’t much more to this night for the White Sox (63-45), who have lost four of their last six to the Royals (46-60), aside from three stellar defensive plays from shortstop Tim Anderson.

“I will say that for the fans that paid their way into it, the shortstop defensive performance was worth the price of admission,” La Russa said. “It’s just a tough night tonight.

“You heard me say before you try to explain something and it sounds like an excuse. You just take your lumps. Same thing on our offense. What did we get? Four hits? So, we got beat.”

Wednesday’s outing marked Giolito’s first start since July 28 at Kauffman Stadium, with the White Sox giving their starters extra rest in between starts as they look at 54 games left on the schedule after playing just 60 in ‘20. They are afforded such an opportunity behind a 9 1/2-game lead over Cleveland, but Giolito didn’t blame that extended break for a lack of crispness.

“No, not really. I was just bad,” Giolito said. “Has nothing to do with rest or anything like that.

"For me, personally, it's not necessary, but I understand what we're doing. It's a long season, we're getting up there in innings, so we want to manage as best we can, not ask too much and gauge it well going into October. I'm cool with it."