Chris Tillman on his outing, Seth Smith on the go-ahead homer

He didn't get the win tonight, but his outing was big. Chris Tillman allowed one run over six innings in the Orioles' 3-1 win over Texas. It snapped a stretch of 10 straight games without a quality start by Orioles starting pitchers. His outing also followed a weekend where the club's starters allowed 21 runs in 11 1/3 innings against the Cubs.

Did Tillman think about trying to be the pitcher to get it turned around tonight?

"I didn't think about it," he said after his 95-pitch no-decision. "It's going to happen sometime. Someone is going to step up. I feel like tonight probably should have been better but Welly (catcher Welington Castillo) did a good job. The guys have been working. It's not for lack of trying. We need to get on a roll. That's what we've done in the past. One or two guys gets going and everyone follows suit. Kind of the friendly competition that we have always talked about. I see a lot of positive signs but the results aren't what they should be. But we're getting there."

Tillman allowed just two hits and tied for his longest outing of the year producing his third quality start in 12 outings.

"It's getting there. It's a process. A never-ending process to tell you the truth. As long as you stay true to who you are and focus on that process I feel like in the end it always works out. When you cheat yourself in that process and straight up shoot for results I feel like it is cheating yourself. You've gotta pay your dues and keep grinding and keep getting better."

Tillman's two hits allowed were his fewest since since April 27, 2016 at Tampa Bay - 37 starts ago. He did not allow a homer for the first time in eight starts. Tillman used his fastball in 52 of his pitches, topping out at 94 mph and averaging about 91.3 mph.

"Yeah, I mean, it was a point where I was falling behind and kind of cheating to get back in the count with something else where, that's not who I am and who I want to be. I've made an effort to do better with the fastball and I feel like we're coming along nicely," he said.

The Orioles used Richard Bleier, Mychal Givens and Brad Brach to pitch the last three innings with Bleier getting his second win and Brach his 16th save. Zach Britton has not pitched on back-to-back days since returning from the DL and he had thrown 18 pitches on Sunday.

The Orioles offense, blanked on three hits Sunday, didn't score until Jonathan Schoop's sac fly in the sixth tonight for a 1-1 tie. Then Seth Smith's solo homer an inning later provided a 2-1 lead and Rubén Tejada's RBI single made it 3-1.

Seven of Smith's 10 homers this year have come at Camden Yards and this was his first of the season when not batting first in the lineup. It was a big one, a 413-foot blast to center off Andrew Cashner to break the 1-1 tie.

"You want to allow yourself to hit home runs, but you're never really trying to so I was trying to get a good pitch and try to have an idea of what he might do and get the barrel to it. We need a lot of wins, so tonight was a good one to win, but we need to start stringing them together," Smith said.

Smith said Tillman set the tone on the mound tonight after O's pitchers allowed 27 runs and 41 hits, including 10 home runs to the Cubs.

"It was great. He did fantastic. I think that's what we expect from him, and what he expects from himself, so it was great to see him go out there and shut them down," he said.

Before this victory the Orioles had lost three in a row and 10 of 13. They were 17-33 their last 50 games and 1-7 in their past eight at home. So this was needed for the entire team.

"The clubhouse has been fine," Smith said. "We go out and compete. We obviously know we need to win some games and we don't put pressure on ourselves, but everyone knows what's going on and kind of how to handle your business and to go out there and compete and try and win baseball games."

Manny Machado went 3-for-3 with three singles and a walk tonight. He has five multi-hit games his last seve games and is batting .500 (14-for-28) in that span. He is batting .358 in 13 games this month.

Brach recorded the Orioles first save since June 29 at Toronto. The Orioles three hits allowed was a season-low for a game at Oriole Park.