The Cleveland Indians can only hope that flipping the calendar to July won't have an impact on the strides they made during their winningest month in more than four years.

Jake Westbrook won his fourth straight start and Coco Crisp went 3-for-5 with two RBIs, leading Cleveland over the Baltimore Orioles 9-3 at Jacobs Field Thursday night.

Jhonny Peralta had two hits, two RBI and scored twice for the Indians, who went 17-10 in June. Cleveland hadn't won that many games in one month since going 19-8 in May 2001.

The Indians stood a half-game behind idle Minnesota in the AL Central and trailed the Orioles by a half-game in the wild-card standings.

"Second place doesn't mean too much as far as in your division," Crisp said. "You want to be in first place."

Baltimore's Rafael Palmeiro went 2-for-4 with two RBI to move within eight hits of reaching 3,000 for his career. He was robbed of a hit in the third inning by second baseman Ronnie Belliard, who stabbed a grounder on the outfield grass and threw out Palmeiro by a step.

Cleveland has won nine of its last 11 on the road and five of six overall.

"The game of baseball has a lot of ups and downs," Crisp said. "We went through a down stage and now we're going up. Hopefully, we can stay consistent throughout the rest of the year and keep playing as well as we've been playing."

At Arlington, Texas, Kevin Mench hit a career-high three homers and Mark Teixeira homered twice as the Rangers matched a club record with eight home runs.

At Detroit, Freddy Garcia (8-3) pitched a five-hitter for his first complete game of the season and the White Sox finished off a three-game sweep of the Tigers.Joe Crede and Carl Everett homered for the White Sox, who picked up their first sweep in Detroit since 2002 and are 8-1 against the Tigers this season.

At Oakland, Calif., Dan Haren (7-7) won his career-best sixth straight decision and Dan Johnson and Bobby Crosby homered to lead Oakland to its season-high seventh straight victory.BC-BBN--NL Rdp, Bjt,0944Marlins' Beckett returns to beat BravesAP PhotosBy The Associated PressThe Florida Marlins were willing to wait so they could get Josh Beckett back on the mound - and the Atlanta Braves weren't happy about it.

Josh Beckett allowed one hit in six innings in his return from the disabled list, and Miguel Cabrera and Juan Encarnacion homered to help Florida beat Atlanta in a game delayed nearly three hours by rain.

At New York, Pedro Martinez (9-2) won for the seventh time in his last eight decisions, and Jose Reyes drove in two runs with his major league-leading ninth triple.

At Chicago, Carlos Lee homered twice, including a first-inning drive off Greg Maddux (7-5), and Milwaukee avoided a three-game sweep.Lee has 22 homers and leads the major leagues with 72 RBI. Damian Miller also homered and had a go-ahead single for the Brewers, and Geoff Jenkins had three doubles.

At St. Louis, rookie Jeff Francis (7-5) pitched three-hit ball for six innings, and Garrett Atkins and Danny Ardoin homered to lead Colorado to its sixth road victory.

At Cincinnati, Ken Griffey Jr. singled home a tying run in the fourth inning, and the second storm of the night forced the teams to settle for a seven-inning tie.The game will be replayed from the start on Saturday as part of a doubleheader.

At Phoenix, Lance Niekro hit a three-run homer and winning pitcher Noah Lowry (5-7) singled in two runs, helping San Francisco to its first three-game sweep at Arizona in five years.