Ubaldo Jimenez on his outing; Chris Davis on his homer and the win

Orioles right-hander Ubaldo Jimenez was motivated to pitch well tonight. But not, he said, because he gave up six runs in his last start.

"There is always motivation to pitch good," Jimenez said after pitching the O's past the A's 5-2. "But I try to forget what happened in the past because there is nothing you can do with it. In baseball, every day is a new day. If you want to be there for your team, you have to find a way to move on.

"The two-seam fastball was pretty good. I was able to keep it down in the zone. The split was good, too, especially in the last inning. Caleb (Joseph) was calling a great game and I was executing the pitches he was calling."

Jimenez went eight innings and gave up nine hits and two runs to improve to 2-3 with an ERA of 4.54 in six starts, as the clubs split a doubleheader. The eight innings ties Kevin Gausman for longest this year. He was also quite pleased with a walk total of one after issuing 15 walks his previous four starts.

"I always try to stay away from the walks. Walks hurt. Every time I walk a guy, it seems like he finds a way to score. I have to find a way to stay away from that."

Jimenez was thrilled to go so deep in the game and he threw 104 pitches. He got a nice ovation leaving the mound after he fanned the side around a single in the eighth.

"That (going deep in the game) is everything for a starting pitcher," Jimenez said. "You try to put that in your mind, to go as deep as you can. It is going to be good for the team and the bullpen. They can be used the way they are supposed to be used.

"It (the ovation) was really nice. Every time you have an ovation it means you did good out there, so that's good. You want to bring your A game in that game because the team needs you."

A team struggling for runs got four tonight in the third inning. The inning saw Chris Davis hit his eighth homer, a two-run shot as the Orioles took a 4-0 lead. They had scored just five runs the previous 33 innings.

"After the first game, really towards the end of the first game, we kind of started to turn it on a little bit," Davis said. "Can't wait around forever. Days like today you are going to have to grind it out. We've been doing a pretty good job of having quality at-bats, just hadn't gotten anything to fall or build momentum. Tonight we did that.

"It was a good game for us. Especially, I just thought the first game we kind of looked dead. We showed a little life toward the end, but we just didn't look like ourselves. It was good to regroup for the second game. Ubaldo threw the ball extremely well, we played good defense and we were finally able to string some hits together and score some runs for him."

Davis had gone a season-long seven games without a homer and had hit just one in his last 12 games before connecting off Jesse Hahn. The homer ended an 0-for-16 stretch for the O's first baseman.

"It felt really good," Davis said. "I felt like the last couple of games my at-bats had been getting a little bit better. My swing just didn't feel like it was right the last couple of weeks. The last few days it is starting to get there. Felt like I've seen the ball well all year. Either haven't had a lot to hit or I've been chasing pitches outside the zone. So good to get a good swing tonight and we'll try to keep it rolling."

Davis now has 99 homers at Camden Yards. His next will make him the third player with 100 homers at Oriole Park, joining Rafael Palmeiro (124) and Adam Jones (106).

Jonathan Schoop is batting .306 (11-for-36) during a 10-game hitting streak. His career-best streak is 12 games from Sept. 7-19, 2015. Manny Machado has six multi-hit games and seven doubles his past nine games. He is batting .389 (14-for-36) during that stretch. For the year, Machado is batting .420 at Camden Yards with 11 doubles, five homers, 13 RBIs and an OPS of 1.264 in 17 games.