diff --git a/src/blocked.c b/src/blocked.c
index c470cba0..84a5287d 100644
--- a/src/blocked.c
+++ b/src/blocked.c
@@ -111,6 +111,7 @@ void blockClient(client *c, int btype) {
     c->btype = btype;
     server.blocked_clients++;
     server.blocked_clients_by_type[btype]++;
+    addClientToShortTimeoutTable(c);
 }
 
 /* This function is called in the beforeSleep() function of the event loop
@@ -619,7 +620,6 @@ void blockForKeys(client *c, int btype, robj **keys, int numkeys, mstime_t timeo
         listAddNodeTail(l,c);
     }
     blockClient(c,btype);
-    addClientToShortTimeoutTable(c);
 }
 
 /* Unblock a client that's waiting in a blocking operation such as BLPOP.
diff --git a/src/server.c b/src/server.c
index bd63c4b4..25af4e16 100644
--- a/src/server.c
+++ b/src/server.c
@@ -1588,6 +1588,7 @@ void clientsHandleShortTimeout(void) {
     uint64_t now = mstime();
     raxIterator ri;
     raxStart(&ri,server.clients_timeout_table);
+    raxSeek(&ri,"^",NULL,0);
 
     while(raxNext(&ri)) {
         uint64_t id, timeout;
@@ -1745,6 +1746,9 @@ void getExpansiveClientsInfo(size_t *in_usage, size_t *out_usage) {
  */
 #define CLIENTS_CRON_MIN_ITERATIONS 5
 void clientsCron(void) {
+    /* Unblock short timeout clients ASAP. */
+    clientsHandleShortTimeout();
+
     /* Try to process at least numclients/server.hz of clients
      * per call. Since normally (if there are no big latency events) this
      * function is called server.hz times per second, in the average case we