Orioles score in double digits again in 10-2 win (with quotes)

If this is how the Orioles are going to respond to trade rumors and the notion that they're sellers, the front office should plant the idea a few days after they break camp.

Kevin Gausman turned in the rotation's third consecutive quality start and the Orioles batted around in the seventh inning and assured themselves of a series win with a 10-2 victory over the Rangers before an announced sweaty crowd of 15,693 at Camden Yards.

The Orioles are 45-49 overall and 28-19 at home. They've outscored the Rangers 25-4 and will try to complete their four-game sweep on Thursday before the Astros arrive in town.

They hadn't won three in a row since June 24-27, with an off-day interrupting the flow.

The Orioles broke open the game with seven runs in the seventh. Seven straight batters reached before an out was recorded, and Trey Mancini capped the inning with a bases-loaded standup triple off Matt Bush. His two triples lead the club.

Adam Jones hit the Orioles' seventh leadoff home run of the season to provide a quick 1-0 lead against left-hander Martín Pérez. Seth Smith, who's on the bench tonight, has five of them and Joey Rickard has one.

Jones has six career leadoff home runs. Tonight marked his first of the season, but he's only batted first in six games.

In an unusual twist, Jones deposited Pérez's pitch onto the flag court in right field. He's more likely to go to left, left-center or center.

According to baseball-reference.com, Jones hadn't hit a home run to right field since Aug. 20, 2014.

Jones also singled to right in the third and seventh innings, the latter scoring a run. Jones had his first three-hit game since June 23.

Gausman held the Rangers to one run and four hits in six innings, with two walks and eight strikeouts. He threw 97 pitches, 58 for strikes, before Mychal Givens took over in the seventh.

The rotation hadn't produced three consecutive quality starts since May 19-21. Gausman has six in 21 starts.

All three starts during the current streak consist of one run over six innings.

Shutdown innings were in vogue at Camden Yards. Gausman stranded Rougned Odor in the second inning after a bunt single against the shift. The Orioles took a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the third on Jonathan Schoop's two-out, two-run double, and Gausman stranded two runners in the top of the fourth by striking out Carlos Gomez.

Schoop leads the club with 26 doubles. The latest plated Jones and Manny Machado after a two-out single and walk, respectively.

Gausman actually struck out the side in the fourth, disposing of Gomez on a 97 mph fastball.

Joey Gallo hit a bases-empty home run off Gausman with one out in the fifth inning to reduce the lead to 3-1 and continue a weird trend.

No. 9 hitters were batting .395 against Gausman before tonight, the second-highest average in the majors. Their .651 slugging percentage also was second and the 1.047 OPS was third.

Gausman hadn't surrendered a home run in three consecutive starts before allowing four to the Cubs in three innings in his most recent outing.

The Orioles loaded the bases with no outs in the seventh on singles by Mancini and Caleb Joseph and a walk to Rickard. Rubén Tejada reached on catcher Robinson Chirinos' error on an apparent force play at home, and the Orioles received consecutive run-scoring singles from Jones, Machado and Schoop.

Two strikeouts were followed by Mancini's triple to right field and the Orioles had scored in double figures for the second time in two nights and the 10th time this season.

Givens retired the side in order in the top of the seventh and has allowed only two runs in his last 20 appearances to lower his ERA to 2.05. Donnie Hart covered the last two innings and gave up a run in the ninth.

The Yankees and Rays lost tonight and the Blue Jays are losing to the Red Sox. Meanwhile, the Orioles keep motoring along, the sound drowning out all talk of a rebuild.

On three straight quality starts making everything easier: "A lot. It's a roll we'd like to get on. Start kind of passing the baton to the next guy. I thought Kevin's fastball command was about as good as it's been all year. Something that I know Roger (McDowell), he had really been working on. They really challenged him with whether you throw 87 or 97, just get it in the right place. He had a good tempo and he felt good about the command of his pitches. Obviously, that's huge for us.

"You do all this player of the game and all this other stuff, but it starts and ends with the starting pitching. First time really the last three or four days where we've gotten our bullpen in order, where we've got the way the pieces we hope they fit and the starters get you through the fifth, sixth and seventh inning, you can make some things work there because you keep people out of harm's way and are able to put them in positions to be successful."

On five of Gausman's eight strikeouts on splitter: "The breaking ball I thought had a little bit better shape to it, which you can put the changeup, call it almost a 'slurve' and the split. I don't know. You've probably seen it a lot more than I have, but I bet a couple of those might have been changeup, but I don't know how you differentiate a whole lot. They both have a similar look to them from the side. It's the old thing - one to compete, two to win, three to dominate. And he was somewhere in between the two."

On seventh inning: "Some fortunate balls that found the right place. Broken bat. They helped us. They had the potential of a double play ball on the ball to Odor, and that really opened it up for us to open the game up. They helped us some, but we put a lot of good at-bats together and some ground balls found some holes, and some balls that they were catching. Manny, for about a month and a half, I don't know if anybody's ... It seemed like every time he squared a ball up, somebody was standing there waiting on it. So, he had some balls fall in that they've been catching."

On whether Gausman was adding and subtracting from fastball: "Well, if he was I'm not going to broadcast that for the next team that he's going to face. But that would be a good take out of the game if I was watching it."

On Jones going to right field: "Coming into yesterday, he wasn't happy with a lot of his at-bats. He's not one of those que sera guys who makes that statement, 'My numbers will be there at the end of the year.' I hate that statement. What about now, what about today, what about this at-bat now? He doesn't play that game where guys say, 'Well, check it out at the end.' The team needs you now.

"I've seen him in the cage. He's not happy. I don't know if he'll tell you he's trying to hit the ball the other way. It's just a product of letting the ball travel. On the ball he hit off the wall to right field, he was actually looking breaking ball and was able to put a good swing on a fastball."

On Jones being in the middle of the scoring: "He likes that. It's kind of his whole persona. Adam doesn't mind being in the middle of things and being counted on to be that guy. I don't there's any coincidence. He likes to play, he likes to compete and he likes to win. And doing well certainly makes that a lot easier."

On Mancini: "You think he might not be swinging the bat particularly well. He's one of those guys, you look up there and he's 1-for-4. That's where the batting average comes from. It's not the 4-for-4s. It's when you're not swinging the bat particularly well and they're pitching you really tough, which they are, that you sneak in that 1-for-4. He shoots a ground ball single to right.

"I just hope he can stay where he is during his career with his ego. He doesn't care about shooting the ball off the right field wall. He'll give in and hit a ball to right field. We'll see if some of the lures make it tougher to keep doing that. But his ability to do that is what makes him a good player."