Postgame quotes from Showalter, O'Day and more after loss to Tigers

DETROIT - Right now the Orioles can't seem to avoid losing. They scored three runs in the top of the eighth to lead 4-2 and then saw Detroit score three in the bottom half to lead 5-4. The Orioles homered to tie it in the ninth. The Tigers homered for the walk-off in the ninth.

Dixon Machado's homer on the second pitch of the last of the ninth gave the Tigers the 6-5 walk-off victory. It was his first career walk-off home run.

The Orioles finally got some runs and looked headed for a comeback win. Then they saw usually reliable reliever Darren O'Day give up the lead and Pedro Araujo allow the walk-off homer.

A disastrous road trip has now seen the club lose all five games thus far and fall to 5-13. Since they won a series at Yankee Stadium, the Orioles are 1-7. They got another quality start today, their eighth of the season, but they're 3-5 in those games.

Down 2-1 to the eighth, the Orioles' dormant offense rose up to score three runs. A Chris Davis drive to left hit the top of the wall and bounced back. What could have been a two-run homer and three-run lead instead was an RBI single, but the Orioles were up 4-2 and needed six outs.

O'Day, working for the first time in a week, came on to try to hold the advantage. He had given up just one run in his first six games of the year. Then he allowed three on one swing.

Reserve catcher John Hicks was 1-for-12 on the season when his drive to left hit the top of the wall and went over for the 5-4 lead. Davis' drive to left bounced back. Hicks' did not. It was his first homer and RBI of the year.

"Darren's been solid," manager Buck Showalter said. "Some of the inactivity probably made him rusty, but I know Darren. We don't use that excuse. But I will for him."

Showalter was right that O'Day would not blame inactivity for his performance today.

"That's a convenient excuse, but I'm not going to allow that. I hadn't been on the mound in a while, but that's early-season weather wreaking havoc on schedules. I felt good. I felt good enough to get some outs," he said.

"Made some good pitches to (Miguel) Cabrera, but the pitch to (Nicholas) Castellanos and the pitch to Hicks were just terrible pitches. Tight margins, games are won or lost late in the game. It's just really poor pitching by me," O'Day said.

After the Orioles fell behind, Luis Sardiñas pinch-hit in the ninth for Caleb Joseph and homered off Detroit closer Shane Greene. His fifth major league homer was both welcome and unexpected, and it tied the game at 5-5. That set the stage for Detroit's Machado to homer off Araujo and provide the Tigers a second straight win in this series.

The Orioles will try to build on the positives today: more good starting pitching and their offense finally producing some runs. But they also need wins to start building on, and soon.

"Trying to look on the positive side of things, we are not even close to where we want to be as far as our offense is concerned," Davis said. "But we are still in these games. We aren't getting blown out. We are losing one-run games. And that's encouraging. It's something we are going to have to figure out, and figure out quickly.

"It's so early, obviously you don't want to bury yourself right out of the gates. We know it's a long season, this division is going to be a grind day in and day out and it's going to go down to the wire like it does every year. The biggest thing for us to remember is we are still a good team, we still have the ability to be a good team and we just have to right the ship right now."

Kevin Gausman allowed two runs and nine hits over six innings in his fourth start of the season. But it was the first in which he made an adjustment in bringing his hands over his head during the windup.

"I was doing my dry throws yesterday and started messing around with it and it felt really good. Felt like I was landing in the same spot every time and like I was really reaching toward home plate," Gausman said after a 97-pitch outing.

Hicks' huge homer today took a positive bounce for the Tigers. The Orioles must be wondering when some bounces will go their way.

"It will. You've got to stay the tide. When things are going real well, you can't seem to do anything wrong. Those days are ahead. Those things can happen, but you can't just wait for them to happen. This is a tough level of play, and you've got to be clicking on a lot of different areas in order to put together a good string of wins," Showalter said.

A winless road trip has one more game remaining. One more chance for the Orioles to get a much-needed victory.