KANSAS CITY -- White Sox manager Tony La Russa envisioned a number of possible positive outcomes with pinch-hitter Brian Goodwin facing a full-count offering and fleet-footed Adam Engel on the move from first base with one out in the ninth inning of Kansas City’s 4-3 victory Monday at Kauffman Stadium.

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Goodwin could find a hole on the infield, sending Engel to at least third base as the tying run. If Goodwin swung and missed, Engel certainly had the capability to steal a base. And even if Goodwin hit the ball on the ground, Engel was on second.

Unfortunately for the White Sox, a fourth outcome arose. Goodwin hit a spinning liner to second baseman Whit Merrifield off Scott Barlow's slider. And with Engel in motion, he was easily doubled up to end the contest. The White Sox (59-41) lost for the fourth time in five games while also having a 10-game winning streak in Kansas City come to a close.

“We stayed close,” La Russa said. “We made it a one-run game. That’s encouraging. That’s how we operate.”

This setback was a blip in the big picture of success, with the White Sox holding an 8½-game lead in the American League Central over the idle Indians. Monday’s most important storyline centered on the much-anticipated comeback of Eloy Jiménez, who returned from the 60-day injured list after completing his Minor League rehab assignment with Triple-A Charlotte.

Jiménez finished 0-for-4, seeing three pitches combined in his first two at-bats and striking out against Mike Minor with Andrew Vaughn on first and a three-run lead sliced to one following Vaughn’s two-run single to right in the sixth. Jiménez expanded the strike zone on two swings in the at-bat, but after dealing with the recovery process from a ruptured left pectoral tendon suffered during the last week of Spring Training, he was still all smiles postgame just because he was back.

“I feel really excited. I think that’s why I’m chasing those pitches because I was a little excited. I feel like those moments are going to keep coming. I’m going to be ready for those,” Jiménez said. “To feel that again, and that adrenaline, it feels good. From now on I just need to concentrate and not let the game speed up on me.”

"Results will come,” White Sox starting pitcher Dallas Keuchel said of Jiménez. “It would have been nice for him to hit a couple of home runs. Really, nobody didn't expect that. But just in the big picture, he's a proven hitter. He's a guy that's a cog in the middle of the lineup and a run producer. It just extends the lineup.”

Keuchel allowed four runs in six innings, striking out three. Three of those runs came on a pair of solo homers from Jorge Soler and Andrew Benintendi’s opposite-field long ball.

Soler has homered twice in back-to-back games, with his first blast Monday covering a Statcast-projected 449 feet in the second and his second carrying 413 feet in the fourth. Benintendi’s drive in the sixth traveled 402 feet.

"Yeah, that was tough. Just kind of spitballing right now thinking about it,” Keuchel said. “That first-pitch home run, and then another home run on not a terrible pitch, but not the best pitch to a hot hitter. They say you'd rather give up solo home runs than anything, but I'd rather not give up home runs.

“It just seems like I'm making good pitches early, or behind in the count, and then it's just one pitch or two pitches that are kind of getting me in trouble. I've got to clean that up. I felt great. I felt like I was kind of getting my second wind there after the sixth, so that's a good sign going forward. But I've just got to make better pitches, there's really no other way around it."

Even with the setback in the opener of this four-game set, the White Sox have their best 100-game record since the 65-35 World Series championship squad in 2005. They also have Jiménez in the middle of their lineup, a true plus moving into the next few months.

“His at-bats were competitive,” La Russa said. “Twice, he chased the ball out of the strike zone. That was probably the biggest thing to control, his aggressiveness. Other than that, I thought he was competitive.”