Orioles blast four homers, cruise past Rangers
BALTIMORE -- Pedro Alvarez homered twice, and Adam Jones and Matt Wieters each added home run to support rookie Dylan Bundy's seven scoreless innings of one-hit baseball as the Baltimore Orioles scored a 5-1 victory over the Texas Rangers on Tuesday night.
All four home runs were solo shots. Alvarez led off the fifth with a homer for the game's first run, and Jones started the sixth the same way.
Then, in the seventh, Alvarez hit his second homer -- the 14th multi-homer game for an Oriole this year, tying Baltimore with the Seattle Mariners for the major league lead in that stat.
The shot to right ended Texas starter Yu Darvish's night with the Orioles on top 3-0. Wieters then greeted reliever Dario Alvarez with his shot, the 11th time this season Baltimore (60-45) hit back-to-back homers.
Chris Davis added an RBI single in the eighth.
All of that proved plenty for Bundy, who didn't look like a pitcher making just his fourth major league start.
He retired the first 10 Rangers and did not allow a hit until Elvis Andrus singled with two outs in the sixth. Overall, Bundy struck out seven and allowed one walk.
Bundy (4-3) fared nearly as well in his previous start. He retired the first 16 Rockies on July 27, not allowing a hit for the first 5 1/3 innings that night. Bundy then gave up two homers and finished allowing three runs on just two hits.
The Rangers (62-45) did not get a runner into scoring position until the eighth when they loaded the bases with one out against Brad Brach.
Andrus drove in a run on a sacrifice fly to center. Darren O'Day entered two batters later with the bases loaded again and struck out Ian Desmond to end the inning.
O'Day closed it out in the ninth for his third save this season. He sealed the 518th victory with the Orioles for manager Buck Showalter, moving him past Paul Richards into second place in team history.
Darvish (2-3) allowed three runs on six hits over his 6 1/3 innings. He struck out nine while issuing only one walk.
Neither team did much on offense until Alvarez led off the fifth inning with a homer to right off Darvish. The designated hitter lined a 2-2 pitch into the seats to give Baltimore a 1-0 lead.
NOTES: Orioles manager Buck Showalter said that recently acquired LHP Wade Miley could start on Thursday if all goes well with his work day. Baltimore traded for Miley on Sunday, getting him from the Mariners for a minor league pitcher. Miley last started for Seattle on Saturday. ... Showalter also said that the team will look at the possibility of using a six-man rotation, although he doesn't think it will materialize. ... 2B Rougned Odor was picked as the Rangers' July Player of the Month by the team's local media, beating out 1B Mitch Moreland in the voting. Moreland had been picked as the American League's Player of the Week for July 25-31. He's gone 10-for-18 with five homers and nine RBIs in his last six games.