CLEVELAND -- Aaron Boone called the Tribe's 10-1 win over the Royals on Thursday afternoon as satisfying a victory the team has earned this season.

"We've been getting beat like a freakin' drum here lately," Boone said.

No use disputing Boone's point -- the Indians had staggered into the finale of this four-game series like a first-time marathoner trying to reach the finish line.

Entering the day, the Tribe was on the back end of a 2-11 slide. Two of those 11 losses were to the Royals, a team -- unlike the Indians -- with no Wild Card aspirations. Those aspirations for Cleveland had taken a pounding.

They could ill-afford another loss.

That was the direction the Indians and right-hander Jake Westbrook seemed to be headed two batters into the first inning. With runners on the corners after consecutive singles, Westbrook found himself facing All-Star Mike Sweeney.

"I just wanted to limit the damage as much as I could," Westbrook said. "Anytime you get a runner on third with less than two outs, I mean, you just want to do the best you can to keep it to just one run."

By serving up a mistake to the dangerous Sweeney, Westbrook could easily have found himself staring at a 3-0 deficit. Instead, Westbrook got him to fish at a pitch low and off the corner for a strikeout.

Westbrook then got Matt Stairs to ground into a fielder's choice, which wiped out the runner at third base, and followed that by striking out Emil Brown to dash the threat.

"I was able to battle out of that first inning," said Westbrook, who had his hard sinker working well. "I think it helped out."

No doubt his work in the first had emotional and psychological benefits for a team that has been struggling to find its playoff momentum.

"I think it's pretty big," Westbrook said. "Any time you battle out of a jam and don't give up any runs, it gives your whole team a boost."

Yet in this case, not allowing the Royals to score didn't really address what had been the chronic problem for the Tribe in its pre- and post-All-Star break funk: its inability to produce runs.

That problem didn't look like it was going to be solved in the early stages of this game, as Royals rookie left-hander J.P. Howell carried a shutout into the bottom of the fourth.

He wouldn't have one at inning's end.

After Coco Crisp grounded out, Victor Martinez singled and Jose Hernandez doubled, putting runners at second and third with one out. Casey Blake made out No. 2 when he hit a shallow fly to left that held Martinez at third.

With two outs, the inning started to take on the look of recent Indians rallies that had fizzled out without producing any runs. As manager Eric Wedge had bemoaned throughout this stretch of disappointing baseball, the Indians were coming up one hit short time and again.

This would not be one of those times, however, as Johnny Peralta drove an 0-1 pitch over the wall in left field to give Westbrook and the Indians a 3-0 lead.

"Talk about energy -- those are the types of things that build energy," said Boone, who went 2-for-4 with two RBIs. "Today, it turned out to be something that got a little contagious."

A "little" contagious? How about a lot?

In the seventh, the Indians finally put together the kind of offensive display that pitchers like Westbrook (7-12, 4.51 ERA) have been looking for, riding a three-run blast from Martinez and solo shot from Blake to break the game wide open. Crisp and Boone added RBI singles to the seven-run frame.

"Hopefully, it's a big step," Wedge said. "It was a good win; we needed to get that one, and for the offense to break out ... it was nice to see them get going.

"It's like we talked about earlier in terms of being contagious -- just having one or two guys that get the ball rolling and keep going from there. So it was good to see that."

Boone shared Wedge's sentiments here.

"Hopefully, this is something that gets us going," he said. "We can start playing like we can. The thing is, as bad as we've played in the last couple of weeks, as frustrating as it's been for all of us, we're right there [in the Wild Card race] -- we're right there.

"We've put ourselves in position to have a chance at this thing."