Wrapping up a 6-4 win with Showalter, Bundy, Trumbo and Wright

CLEVELAND - The Orioles struck out six times tonight. Fewer whiffs and a win.

Adam Jones collected three hits from atop the order, Manny Machado went 4-for-5 and Dylan Bundy earned his first major league victory in a 6-4 win over the Indians at Progressive Field.

Bundy tossed 1 1/3 scoreless innings after relieving starter Mike Wright with two outs in the fifth. Brad Brach stranded a runner while striking out two in the seventh, Francisco Lindor hit a solo home run off Darren O'Day in the eighth and Zach Britton recorded his 13th save.

The Indians put runners on second and third with no outs in the eighth, but O'Day got out of the jam. A strikeout, intentional walk and sweet 4-6-3 double play. Jonathan Schoop gets a cold star for the stop, spin and throw to deny Chris Gimenez.

bundy-throwing-sidebar.jpgBundy had allowed seven runs and nine hits over 4 1/3 innings in his last three outings. He needed this one.

"That's cool," said manager Buck Showalter. "I wasn't sure of it. I could hear it inside and figured it out. That was it? That's cool.

"It's a lot like (Ashur) Tolliver. Tolliver's had some major arm issues that he's fought his way through. Those are little moments you take. That's cool. He deserved it, too. He came in a tough situation. I thought the sixth inning was good for him, too. Little by little."

Bundy had no idea that he qualified for the win until getting back to his locker.

"It's taken four years I guess to get to that point, but it's still exciting," Bundy said. "I actually didn't know I got the win until some of the teammates told me in the clubhouse, so it was fun."

The moment was made more precious because Bundy stranded two runners in the fifth by inducing a popup from Mike Napoli.

"Yeah, it was great," said Bundy, who made his major league debut in September 2012 and underwent ligament-reconstructive surgery on his right elbow the following year. "I can actually remember giving up some inherited runners of Mike's in the past, so I really wanted to get those guys stranded for him to, not just me. Yeah, that was a big moment and I'm happy with the results."

Bundy had a few souvenirs to commemorate the occasion.

"Yeah, they gave me a couple balls," he said, smiling. "I don't know which ones they are, but I got a couple of them. I'll probably keep a couple of them and put them in my house or something."

The Orioles improved to 27-19 while snapping a four-game losing streak.

Jones had a four-hit game on May 11. Tonight marked his first three-hit game, and it occurred in his first start as a leadoff hitter since May 10, 2010.

"I get the same effort and same, you know, every day," Showalter said. "We had a little talk today. We do every day. Had four options there and this one worked out today. The problem when you do something like that, as a manager, what are you going to do tomorrow if he's 0-for-5 with five punchouts? Where are you going? You always try to leave yourself a little bit of wiggle room. Things like that, you can only do if you trust good players."

Jones is expected to bat leadoff again Saturday afternoon.

"I don't know. We'll see," Showalter said. "I hadn't gotten that far. It's been a while. Can I just kind of suck this one in a little? No, more than likely.

"I gave him four options today. Of course, I had already made out the lineup. We both picked the right one."

Mark Trumbo said putting Jones atop the order is done "when things aren't going your way."

"You can't be afraid to mix it up a little bit," he said. "Is it something Adam's going to do consistently? Who knows? But for tonight, it was a nice, maybe a shot in the arm a little bit, something different, and he swung the bat really well."

Chris Davis snapped a 3-3 tie with an RBI double in the seventh that scored Machado, and Trumbo followed with his 15th home run.

Trumbo lined a pitch from Zach McAllister inside the right field foul pole.

"I hit that thing pretty hard," Trumbo said. "It may not have seemed like it. It was solid contact. This is a tough ballpark to get one out of sometimes. It plays pretty big. At that point of the game, it was really timely. It really worked out well."

The importance of striking out only six times was downplayed by the Orioles.

"We're not afraid to strike out," Trumbo said. "They're going to come. More than that, it was some of the pitches we took and gave ourselves another chance to get a better pitch to hit, and I think when we did get something to work with, we put it in play and found some holes, too."

The Orioles set a major league record with 52 strikeouts in a three-game series in Houston, but Showalter wasn't obsessing over it.

"Well, the thing we've been focusing on the last four games is Ws and Ls," he said. "Everything else is, we're trying to get to an end game of winning a game with the Orioles having more runs than they've got after nine innings."

The Orioles took a 3-0 lead in the first on Machado's RBI single and Jonathan Schoop's two-out, two-run single off Indians starter Trevor Bauer.

"I thought Jon's base hit in the first inning was big from just a mental and emotional standpoint, to take advantage of some really good at-bats," Showalter said. "Can't be forgotten, Chris had a big double for us. Big double. And the two guys up the middle played both sides of the ball about as good as you'll want to see it played tonight."

O'Day escaped further harm in the eighth on the double play after Showalter order an intentional walk to Lonnie Chisenhall to load the bases. Chisenhall is 2-for-4 with a home run off O'Day.

"That's having good players," Showalter said. "You know your infielders are good and you know your pitcher's good. Coming into the series, I didn't really like that Chisenhall-O'Day matchup if I could stay from it, but we're just fortunate. Their guy hit the ball hard and we were lucky it was in a place where we could catch it."

Wright allowed three runs and six hits in 4 2/3 innings in his shortest start of the season. He walked two, struck out four and threw 99 pitches (60 strikes).

"Just wild in the strike zone," Showalter said. "What did he have, two walks? But it seemed like ... You see a lot of replays, trying to go in and he jerks it away. He's trying to go away and he deflects it back in. Two hanging breaking balls. Made it tough.

"I like the fact he didn't implode, but his command ... I told him that first inning, 'You know, you get the ball where you're supposed to get it, you're going to have a good outing.' And he just couldn't consistently get there. But he got some big outs along the way."

Wright was disappointed in his outing.

"Just OK," he said. "I still feel better than I ever did last year. I was trying to be aggressive. I didn't have my best stuff, but I was trying to keep my team in there."

Wright was staked to an early 3-0 lead and still couldn't complete five innings and qualify for the win.

"It was terrible," he said. "When you score three in the first, you should shut out, shut out, shut out every inning after that. I should never walk anybody. I should continue to be aggressive.

"The home run to (Mike) Napoli is whatever, a hung slider. Not a pitch I want to throw, but he fouled off 95 at the letters, so that's heck of an at-bat. But other than that, I've got to attack. I can't walk two, especially when I get 0-2."




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