Hosmer lifts Royals past White Sox in 9th

Kansas City catcher Salvador Perez threw out Alex Rios at the plate and picked off Alexei Ramirez at third base, and the AL Central-leading Sox kept missing chances Thursday night in a 4-3 loss to the Royals.

Eric Hosmer singled home the winning run with two outs in the ninth inning. The White Sox stayed two games ahead of Detroit, which lost in the afternoon to Oakland, with 13 games remaining.

Chicago wasted an early 3-0 lead and lost the sub-.500 Royals for the ninth time in their last 11 meetings.

"They're a tough team," Youkilis said. "They pitch well and they get timely hitting. They've got our number recently and not at a good time. Hopefully they will get really hot in their series against Detroit and play them tough."

The Royals won 12 of 18 against the White Sox this season, including one stretch of six consecutive wins.

"We've played them tough all year," Hosmer said. "It's baseball. Certain teams match up well against other teams."

The Royals now have seven games remaining with the Tigers.

"I love where we're at," Youkilis said. "Two games up is better than two games down."

But it could have been three, but the White Sox squandered early chances to pad their lead.

"Definitely runs were left out there," Youkilis said. "If we keep emphasizing it, we keep talking about it, guys will press too much. It's better to go out and not think about it, have the same approaches and get it out of your mind."

Billy Butler led off the Royals ninth with a single against Jesse Crain (2-3). With two outs, pinch runner Jarrod Dyson stole second and Jeff Francoeur was walked intentionally. Matt Thornton relieved and Hosmer singled down the third base line on a 0-2 pitch.

"In that situation, it's a bad pitch, enough for him to put a bat on it," Thornton said. "I lost the game."

Greg Holland (7-4) worked a scoreless ninth for the victory.

Rios tried to score with one out in the third when Jeremy Guthrie's pitch rolled a few feet behind Perez. But Perez's toss to Guthrie covering the plate beat Rios.