O's win series in Detroit and take some momentum to New York

I guess the glass-half-full Orioles fan will look at the weekend series in Detroit as a positive in that the Orioles won the series, they bounced back from a very poor game on Friday and their offense had a big game Sunday.

The glass-half-empty crowd may look at it as they remain four games out of first, as they were at the All-Star break, and they lost three more days of the season.

Sell off all players! Just kidding.

I go back to what I wrote on Sunday morning in that a resurgent Chris Tillman and a Kevin Gausman pitching well could pump some life into the O's rotation. Another strong second half by the starting five could lead this team back to the playoffs. There is a different feel today than there was after the O's poor performance on Friday night.

We saw how important getting solid starting pitching can be when the Orioles were behind 6-2 in the fourth inning Friday and they led 1-0 for most of the game Saturday. Each time, they scored three runs and they won one of those two games.

Good starting pitching keeps you in games, allows you to win without scoring a lot of runs and allows the bullpen pitchers to work in their most useful roles.

It was about the starting pitching last winter, on opening day, and is now. Nothing has changed there.

Now we get a day off from the game to ponder whether we will see more of the club we saw on Friday or the one that battled back Saturday and Sunday at Comerica Park.

More notes on the Orioles:

* They ended a run of 18 consecutive games with 10 or fewer hits on Sunday when they had 14 hits. That is their most since they also had 14 on June 25 against Boston.

* The Orioles went 6-for-10 with runners in scoring position Sunday after going 3-for-57 over the previous eight games and 7-for-91 in the last 13 games. The O's six hits with RISP yesterday was their most since they went 6-for-13 with RISP on June 25 against Boston.

* The Orioles have now homered in 10 of their last 11 games, hitting 16 in that time. They have produced multi-homer games in five of the past seven games.

* Over his last four games, Adam Jones is 9-for-18 with four multi-hit games, a double, three homers and three RBIs. He has hit five homers his past nine games and has an OPS of .956 in July.

* In 42 games since June 1, Manny Machado is batting .333 with eight doubles, 12 homers and 28 RBIs. Machado hit .365 in June with an OPS of 1.046. He is batting .260 in July with a .913 OPS.

* Over his last nine games, Matt Wieters is batting .333 (10-for-30), but he has just one RBI over his last 14 games.

* The Orioles are 5-5 against the Yankees this year, outscoring New York 54-43 in the season series with a team batting average of .295, a .499 slugging percentage and an .844 OPS.

* No Oriole has hit better against the Yankees in 2015 than catcher Caleb Joseph. In eight games he is batting .536 (15-for-28) with three doubles, a triple, two homers, six RBIs and an OPS of 1.480.