Cardinals 3, Tigers 1: Jake Westbrook went the distance on a five-hitter to outduel Rick Porcello and lead St. Louis past host Detroit.

Westbrook (6-6) put together his best performance of the season, limiting the high-powered Tigers to an unearned run while walking one and striking out four. The veteran righthander, who threw 81 of his 113 pitches for strikes, has won two straight outings after going 0-4 in his previous six starts.

Carlos Beltran went 2-for-2 with a pair of walks and a run scored while Daniel Descalso had the lone RBI for the Cardinals, who avenged a 6-3 loss in the interleague series opener a night earlier.

Porcello (4-5) was banged around for 10 hits over seven innings but limited the damage to a pair of runs. He walked one and struck out a pair.

Detroit opened the scoring with its lone run in the bottom of the third inning. Gerald Laird hit a one-out single, advanced to second on a Descalso error and scored on Austin Jackson's double down the right-field line.

Descalso atoned with a run-scoring sacrifice fly in the fifth inning and the Cardinals went in front in the sixth after loading the bases with nobody out. Yadier Molina brought home the go-ahead run on a double-play grounder to short, while David Freese lined out to a falling Brendan Boesch to end the threat.

The Cardinals tacked on a run in the eighth after Tigers shortstop Jhonny Peralta mistimed his jump on a Molina line drive and had the ball glance off his glove and into shallow center field, bringing home Beltran from second base.

GAME NOTEBOOK: The complete game was Westbrook's first since May 16, 2010, when he went the distance for the Cleveland Indians in a 5-1 win over the Baltimore Orioles. ... Jackson has 18 RBIs in his last 14 games after knocking in just 12 runs over his first 33 contests. ... Beltran extended his hitting streak to 12 games with a first-inning single. He's hitting .457 (21-for-46) during the run to raise his season average to .311. ... Peralta's error was his fifth of the season in his 60th game. Peralta made just seven errors in 146 games in 2011.