Howard homers in Phillies' win

Ryan Howard hit his 30th homer, Vance Worley (10-1) pitched into the seventh inning and Philadelphia completed a four-game sweep in Cincinnati with a 6-4 win Thursday.

"Everybody's playing well," Howard said. "Atlanta's playing well. Milwaukee's playing well. The way I see it, we need to keep our foot on the gas and not let up."

Michael Martinez added a two-run homer as the Phillies (87-46) moved 41 games over .500 for the first time since Aug. 26, 1976, when they improved to 83-42 with a win at Cincinnati. It was Philadelphia's first four-game sweep at Cincinnati since May 13-16, 1916.

Howard hit a solo drive to left-center off Mike Leake in the sixth, giving Philadelphia a 4-1 lead and extending his streak of consecutive seasons with at least 30 homers and 100 RBIs to six.

Cardinals 8, Brewers 4: Albert Pujols hit two home runs, including a grand slam, Rafael Furcal a leadoff homer for the second game in a row and Matt Holiday went deep for the 200th time as visiting St. Louis moved within 7 1/2 games of Milwaukee. The Brewers scored all of their runs on homers by Prince Fielder, Jonathan Lucroy) and Corey Hart. Fielder became the first player in Brewers history with 30 home runs in five consecutive seasons.

Dodgers 6, Pirates 4: Dana Eveland (1-0) pitched eight crisp innings and Dee Gordon hit a two-run double and Aaron Miles a two-run single as visiting Los Angeles sent Pittsburgh to its fifth straight loss and seventh in the last eight games.

Royals 11, Tigers 8: Jeff Francoeur homered for his 1,000th hit and drove in three runs as visiting Kansas City salvaged a split of the four-game series. Johnny Giavotella hit a tiebreaking two-run single in the seventh inning against Luis Marte, who was making his major league debut. Eric Hosmer added a solo shot in the eighth. Hosmer also had two singles and two walks. Magglio Ordoñez homered, doubled twice and stole a base for first-place Detroit, which leads Cleveland and Chicago by 5 1/2 games in the AL Central.

Athletics 7, Indians 0: Gio Gonzalez (12-11) pitched seven shutout innings and Cliff Pennington had four hits and three RBIs as visiting Oakland avoided a four-game sweep. Indians outfielder Shin-Soo Choo was placed on the 15-day disabled list with a strained muscle in his side.

Blue Jays 8, Orioles 6: Brett Lawrie hit a tiebreaking two-run homer in the eighth inning and Yunel Escobar had his second straight four-hit game for visiting Toronto. Vladimir Guerrero and Matt Wieters homered for Baltimore (54-81), which was assured of a 14th straight non-winning season. -- AP