Justin Masterson worked seven strong innings, and Asdrubal Cabrera and Jason Donald both homered to lift the Cleveland Indians to a 5-4 win over the Kansas City Royals on Friday night.

Masterson (11-8) allowed seven hits and four runs as the Indians (69-66) equaled last year’s win total and remained 5 1/2 games behind first-place Detroit in the AL Central.

Royals starter Bruce Chen (10-6) gave up five runs on eight hits in six innings and Chris Perez worked the ninth for his 31st save.

When Masterson and Chen matched up in Cleveland last Sunday, it was Chen who had the upper hand in a 2-1 Kansas City victory.

Not this time.

The Indians went to work in the first, producing two runs on three hits. Carlos Santana’s run-scoring double and an RBI single by Jim Thome put the Royals in a hole that would get much deeper.

Cleveland struck again in the third against Chen, who had gone 5-1 in six August starts. A leadoff single by Kosuke Fukudome and Cabrera’s two-run homer that barely eluded the outstretched glove of a leaping Alex Gordon in left staked Masterson to a 4-0 lead.

Cabrera fouled a pitch off his left knee early in his at-bat and hobbled out of the batter’s box. He homered shortly after that but left the game favoring his knee in the bottom half when he had trouble moving laterally in the field on a grounder.

Donald homered in the fourth before the Royals made a bid to climb out of a five-run hole. Kansas City used a run-scoring single by Alcides Escobar in the fifth and a sacrifice fly by Eric Hosmer in the sixth to close to 5-2.

The Royals applied more pressure in the seventh when Alex Gordon launched a two-run homer to straightaway center.

— Associated Press —