Kansas City, Mo. ? 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 Chicago White 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.

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.

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.

Perez nabbed Ramirez in the fourth for his fifth pickoff, most among major league catchers.

After going 1 for 12 with runners in scoring position in Wednesday’s 3-0 loss to Kansas City, the White Sox went 1 for 8 in those situations and stranded seven runners. Chicago is hitting .190 with runners in scoring position over the past 19 games.

The White Sox jumped out to a 3-0 lead, but failed to hold it. Alejandro De Aza, Adam Dunn and A.J. Pierzynski singled in the first to take a 1-0 lead.

Guthrie committed a throwing error in the second that led to two unearned runs. He walked Dan Johnson and gave up an infield single to Alexei Ramirez, then didn’t cleanly come up with Gordon Beckham’s sacrifice bunt and made a wild throw to first that allowed a run to score. Dewayne Wise added an RBI grounder.