KANSAS CITY -- Mark Teahen's grand slam in the fourth inning Thursday night looked as if it might infuse the Indians with a since of urgency -- or make them panic.

Then again, as outfielder Grady Sizemore noted, "This is a team that doesn't panic."

So instead of letting Teahen's 441-foot shot sap them of momentum, the Indians jumped into a higher gear. From the 5-5 tie that came on the grand slam, the Tribe poured six more runs on the Royals en route to an 11-6 win.

Those six runs accomplished a couple of things: First of all, they gave Cliff Lee his 18th win of the season. More important in the landscape of a 162-game season, those six runs allowed the Indians to move within 1 1/2 games of the first-place White Sox in the American League Central Division and go 1 1/2 games ahead of the idle Red Sox in the Wild Card race.

All of this was a lot to pull out of one win, but the 27-year-old Lee knew the game could have ended not nearly as well as it did -- at least not for him. Previously, he admitted was lucky to own such a flashy record this season, and good luck didn't abandon him in this outing.

Riding a 5-1 lead into the fourth, he gave up singles to Matt Stairs, Angel Berroa and John Buck to load the bases. Lee struck out Justin Huber, a hint that good things might be in store.

They weren't -- his first pitch to Teahen landed in the fountain behind the right-center field wall.

"A fastball," Lee said of the pitch to Teahen. "It crossed Victor [Martinez] up. ... I threw it right down the middle. [Teahen's] a Major League hitter. He did what he's supposed to do with it."

If panic were to set in at all, it likely would have set in at that point. And if not there, then probably when the Royals forged ahead, 6-5, in the bottom of the sixth on Andres Blanco's sacrifice fly.

Yet that didn't phase the Indians -- or Lee, for that matter.

In the seventh, the Tribe retook the lead. Sizemore, who went 5-for-6, ignited the comeback with a leadoff single off left-hander Andy Sisco. The next batter, Coco Crisp, put the Indians back on top when he drove Sisco's 3-2 pitch over the left-center field fence.

Those two runs put Lee (18-4, 3.90 ERA) back on track for the win, which he picked up despite allowing 10 hits and six earned runs.

Call him lucky? Lee would agree.

"The credit tonight definitely goes to the hitters," Lee said. "They had a big night for us."

Oh, the hitters did. Besides Sizemore and Crisp, the Tribe got a three-run homer from Travis Hafner, three hits from Aaron Boone and two hits from Jhonny Peralta en route to a team total of 15.

"There's nothing to be said about it," Sizemore said. "We all pick each other up; it's never just one guy."

That's a theme that manager Eric Wedge preaches. It's Wedge's one-through-nine mantra, as clichéd as some people say it sounds. Yet it's a doctrine that rings clear to his players.

From Lee on down.

"They work hard to take advantage of opportunities," said Wedge, whose ballclub has beaten the Royals eight times in a row. "They had some real good bats tonight. This was a big one; they had to work hard for it tonight."

Perhaps none of them had to work harder than Lee, who became the first Indians pitcher since Bartolo Colon in 1999 to win 18 games.

"I was pretty lucky," Lee said. "We got off to a good lead, and I got a good cushion to work with. I gave it all back on one pitch."