White Sox's Hendriks aiming to come off injured list early next week

Liam Hendriks, the White Sox's standout closer, is on the injured list with a right forearm strain.

He's also been pitching with a tear in his ulnar collateral ligament since 2008, his second season in professional baseball.

Those are two obvious red flags for a pitcher, but Hendriks did some pregame throwing the last two days at Guaranteed Rate Field.

The 33-year-old reliever is eligible to come off the IL on June 27 and he plans to be in uniform.

"We've recovered well," said Hendriks, who last pitched on June 10. "Everything is exactly where we are expecting it to be. Now the challenge on my behalf tends to convince them that I can come back quicker than they are trying to let me."

On Monday, Sox general manager Rick Hahn said a big challenge is trying to protect injured players from doing worse damage by returning before they're ready.

Hendriks seems to fit that profile, so a late June return is probably not realistic.

"I'm not allowed to come back before the 27th," said Hendriks, who still ranks second in the American League with 16 saves. "I mean, they can push at me against it for a little bit, but the 27th is when I'm available to come off the IL. And so that's the date we have in mind and hopefully returning some more days off in there to make sure that it's healing up right.

"But the biggest thing is throwing, recovering and not losing range of motion, not losing strength or not losing anything like that. As soon as we get that going, we'll be all hunky dory."

On the mend:

Yoan Moncada is back on the injured list, this time with a strained right hamstring.

The third baseman missed the first month of the season with an oblique injury and he's also dealt with a quad issue. He's not overly concerned with the hamstring injury.

"I don't think it's anything serious or anything that's going to take a long time," Moncada said through White Sox translator Billy Russo. "The muscle just kind of strained. It isn't a bad one. I think I'll be OK after the IL stint."

Moncada went 5-for-6 and drove in 5 runs against the Tigers last Wednesday. In his next game, at Houston Friday, he injured the hamstring running to first base.

"I was feeling good, especially that day in Detroit," Moncada said. "My swing was good before the injury happened. What I'm doing now is taking some swings left-handed and keeping as close to what it was before."

Back in play:

Eloy Jimenez restarted his rehab assignment with Class AAA Charlotte Tuesday night and was 0-for-4 with 2 strikeouts against Worcester.

Still recovering from late April surgery on a torn right hamstring tendon, Jimenez was Charlotte's designated hitter and he batted second.