Notes and quotes after the Orioles' shutout of Texas

ARLINGTON, Texas - The Orioles have played two very different games at Globe Life Park this weekend: one where their starting pitcher Chris Tillman allowed eight runs and one where starter Kevin Gausman allowed no runs in 8 2/3 innings.

A team that is the worst in the league in starting pitcher ERA seemed to much more enjoy Gausman's latest strong outing. It seems a long time ago now, but it wasn't that far back. It was the first game of the second half and the Cubs smoked four homers off Gausman, who gave up eight runs over three innings that night. He looked terrible and it was a very disappointing to start to the second half for him and the team.

Since that game, he has made three starts, going 3-0 with an ERA of 0.44. He has allowed one run over 20 2/3 innings, throwing back-to-back scoreless starts versus the Rays and Rangers.

The Orioles have six shutouts this year and two have come on this road trip in the two games started by Gausman. He had an ERA of 6.39 after that Cubs start and now it is down to 5.37.

With three scoreless starts over his past six games, Gausman is now the leader on this team in scoreless starts of at least five innings:

4 - Gausman
2 - Dylan Bundy, Ubaldo Jiménez
1 - Tillman, Wade Miley

Gausman passed around some praise last night to his tight defense, which included Adam Jones robbing a homer and Manny Machado starting momentum-stopping double plays.

"Then you've got Jonesy robbing (Joey Gallo)," Gausman said. "When he hit it, I thought it was way gone. He hit it really high. The way that Jonesy was kind of looking at it, I thought it was going to be way gone. Before I knew it, he went up there and reached it. Luckily, he's got a lot of pine tar in that glove. I think it stuck in there. That helped it. But like I said, this defense, you feel really confident any time there's weak contact or a hard-hit ball. Just all-around great defense. But Manny and those guys, they make amazing plays every night. You feel really confident every time you get a ground ball."

Gausman was very pitch efficient, with a stretch of five straight innings using fewer pitches each inning. He threw 17 in the fourth, 15 in the fifth, 10 in the sixth, nine in the seventh and eight pitches in the eighth inning. He missed by an out of becoming the first O's starter with a complete-game shutout since Miguel Gonzalez versus Cincinnati on Sept. 3, 2014.

"He was so close," catcher Caleb Joseph said. "He did a tremendous job locating the fastball. It all begins and ends with fastball command with Kevin. He elevated when he needed to. He hit it down and away when he needed to. He threw a lot of good sinkers in, took advantage of a pretty aggressive club over there, and I think that helped kind of limit his pitch count. He was able to get up to (118) over nine innings? That's pretty good. That's what you like. That's what you want to see out of a horse you're trying to ride."

Beltre closes in: Right now, former Orioles lefty Dave McNally stands alone. He is the only O's pitcher to ever give up a batter's 3,000th hit while pitching for the club. It was McNally on the mound at Memorial Stadium on Sept. 24, 1974 when he gave up No. 3,000th to Detroit's Al Kaline, a Baltimore native. He doubled off McNally for his milestone hit.

With three hits in this series, Texas third baseman Adrian Beltre is at 2.999 hits entering today's game. Beltre pulled within one hit with a fourth-inning single last night. With the crowd standing and roaring, he had two more chances to get the milestone. But he grounded to short in the sixth and bounced into a double play in the ninth. Beltre hit a one-hopper that Machado deftly turned into a 5-4-3 double play.

Beltre has 126 career hits versus the Orioles. He has 1,110 hits with Texas, 949 with the Los Angeles Dodgers, 751 with Seattle and 189 with Boston. The last player to collect 3,000 hits was Ichiro Suzuki, then with Miami at Colorado on Aug. 7, 2016.

Per Elias Sports Bureau, most career hits while playing third base:
2,886 - Adrian Beltre
2.838 - Brooks Robinson
2,788 - Wade Boggs

Hot bats: A few O's batters continue to swing pretty hot bats, even though the team has scored just six runs in this series and 16 runs the last five games.

Joseph homered last night, hitting No. 5. Over his last 16 games, Joseph is batting .408 (20-for-49) with three doubles, three homers and eight RBIs.

Jones led off the game with a double last night and is batting .392 (20-for-51) over his past 11 games with four homers and 11 RBIs.

Jonathan Schoop's two-bagger in the third inning was his 100th career double. While Schoop didn't have an RBI last night, he has driven at least one run in 10 of his past 12 games. In that span, Schoop is batting .354 (17-for-48) with five homers and 19 RBIs.

Trey Mancini bashed a 459-foot home run when he produced an exit velocity of 109 mph off an Austin Bibens-Dirkx fastball in the second inning. Mancini has 10 RBIs his past 11 games.

.@TreyMancini got us started with this blast, and we never looked back! https://t.co/rZLblzX4Sp #Birdland pic.twitter.com/Jt9PzvCRK9

-- Baltimore Orioles (@Orioles) July 30, 2017