AMERICAN LEAGUE Indians take early lead, hold off Rangers, 9-5

Rafael Palmeiro still needs one home run to reach 500 for his career.
ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) -- Omar Vizquel had four hits and Matt Lawton had the only home run in a game in which Texas' Rafael Palmeiro was trying to join the 500-homer club, and the Cleveland Indians beat the Rangers 9-5 Friday night.
Palmeiro was 2-for-2 with a sacrifice fly and two walks. He hit a two-out, two-run double in the ninth inning.
Palmeiro moved into 25th place on the career RBIs list with 1,597, passing Mike Schmidt and George Brett.
Twice against Indians starter Jake Westbrook (2-2), Palmeiro hit first pitches -- the run-scoring fly to center in the first and a line-drive single to right in the sixth. He walked in an 11-pitch at-bat against David Elder in the eighth.
The Rangers were already down 7-1 when Palmeiro walked on a full-count pitch in the third.
Taking control
Cleveland chased John Thomson (2-4) with consecutive one-out RBI singles by Shane Spencer and Travis Hafner in the third. Tim Laker greeted reliever R.A. Dickey with a two-run double that made it 7-1.
Dickey didn't allow another run until Lawton led off the sixth with his fifth homer, a 429-foot shot into the second deck of stands in right-center field for an 8-2 lead. Lawton added an RBI double to right in the eighth, but was thrown out trying to stretch the hit into a triple.
Westbrook gave up two runs on seven hits over 6 2/3 innings, his longest outing in six starts this season. He struck out two and walked only Palmeiro.
Last Saturday, Westbrook hit Palmeiro's right elbow with a pitch. Palmeiro then went 0-for-12 before hitting his 499th homer in the eighth inning against Toronto on Thursday, a week after his previous long ball.
Cleveland, which came in hitting .237 as a team with five of its starters under .230, had a season-high 16 hits. Ellis Burks, who was 0-for-3, was the only starter without a hit.
The Indians (10-24) have won three of four against Texas this season. At 15-20 under new manager Buck Showalter, the Rangers are a game worse than the same point last year when they went on to finish last in the AL West for the third straight season.
Early advantage
Vizquel's had a one-out double in the first, and scored on Milton Bradley's single. The Rangers got even in bottom of the inning when leadoff hitter Carl Everett was hit by a pitch and eventually scored on Palmeiro's sac fly.
Casey Blake and Brandon Phillips, the Nos. 8 and 9 hitters, had consecutive RBI doubles in the second to put the Indians ahead to stay at 3-1. A leadoff single by Vizquel, who finished 4-for-5, started the fourth-run third.
Michael Young had a leadoff single in the Texas fifth, then advanced on a groundout and a wild pitch by Westbrook before scoring on a groundout by Hank Blalock.
Notes
Rangers RF Juan Gonzalez has an AL-high five outfield assists. ... Vizquel has twice had five hits in a game, the last against Texas on May 5, 2002. ... Hafner left the game in the middle of the third because of a bruised big left toe. ... Cleveland had been 0-11 in games west of the Mississippi River (0-2 in Kansas City, 0-3 in each Anaheim, Oakland and Seattle).