Showalter on Gausman, O'Day, home success and a 3-2 victory

Kevin Gausman threw 15 pitches in the first inning tonight and 35 in the second. He served up a home run to the third batter of the game. Nothing about the early portion of this story suggested a happy ending.

Gausman did a major rewrite against the Rangers, working through the seventh inning and leaving with a 3-2 lead that held up after manager Buck Showalter turned to his bullpen.

Darren O'Day, working on back-to-back nights, retired the side in order in the eighth, and Zach Britton recorded his 33rd save to give the Orioles their third consecutive victory and guarantee another home series win.

Britton's 33 consecutive saves to begin a season are the most by a left-handed reliever, surpassing the Tigers' Willie Hernandez in 1984. His 106 saves move him past Tippy Martinez for third place on the Orioles' all-time list.

Gausman allowed two runs - none after the second - and seven hits while improving to 3-8 with a 4.08 ERA. He walked one, struck out seven and gave up a home run to Carlos Beltran. Showalter removed him after 108 pitches.

The Rangers scored again in the second on Rougned Odor's leadoff double and Jonathan Lucroy's single with the counts 0-2 and 1-2, respectively. Nomar Mazara walked and Gausman threatened to make another early exit, but he retired nine of the next 10 batters.

Gausman has three quality starts in his last four outings and five in his last seven.

The Orioles jumped left-hander Cole Hamels in the first inning, a guy who ranks among the favorites for the American League's Cy Young Award. They scored all three of their runs and didn't get another hit until Mark Trumbo's leadoff single in the sixth.

Four hits would suffice tonight.

Matt Wieters had the decisive hit with a two-out, two-run single after back-to-back walks to Chris Davis and Steve Pearce. Pearce twice struck out looking and expressed his displeasure with plate umpire Stu Scheurwater. Body language can speak volumes.

Wieters earned Player of the Game honors by also throwing out Odor trying to advance to second base with one in the ninth. The ball got away from Wieters, but not far enough for Odor to move into scoring position.

Anyone still questioning Wieters' elbow may now stop.

Here's a sampling from Showalter:

On a one-run second inning and holding the lead being key for Gausman: "That's what Wally (Dave Wallace) and I were talking about when the game ended. That was one of the keys to the game. Another was getting right back in there and scoring three. The old bent but didn't break. Showed a lot of moxie that inning. It's the time of the year where the individual stuff kind of goes away.

"We played really well defensively tonight, Chris (Davis) made a really good play. J.J. (Hardy) made a play up the middle not many shortstops make. Matt made a great play in the last inning. That's a hard play for a catcher."

On whether the second inning shows Gausman's maturation that may carry over: "That's a good narrative, but every game is a different challenge. You're on the road, it's hot, it's cold, it's windy, there's different hitters. It's just, it can't hurt. He's done that before. It's not the first time he's answered a challenge.

"He had really good command on his fastball. They're a good offensive team and Kevin and Dylan (Bundy) really pitched well the past two nights. So did our bullpen. Darren had a good eighth inning for us."

On the Orioles' tendency to beat good pitchers: "I think the step-ups come from our pitcher. You know those guys' runs are going to be at a premium. Our guys, you've got to be ready to go first inning. That's probably one of the few poor pitches he made all night.

"You can give in to what conventionality says it should be like, where you can compete and look at it as an opportunity to present yourself real well to your team and to the opposition, and one that may not look good on paper. But Hamel's having a great year. You can make a case for him being the leading candidate for the Cy Young. But it wasn't like we beat him up or anything. We had one shot at it and we took advantage of it. And our pitching made it hold up. And the defense."

On the difference in O'Day since he came off the DL: "He's healthy. He had a couple plays the last two nights. He had the jump in the air tonight. He had to stop and start covering first base, which was the one I was really looking at last night. I think his last probably three outings before he went on the DL, he was fighting it, hoping it (hamstring) would quiet down. We stayed away from him some, but that last day we could tell he wasn't able to pitch at the level he's capable of. But sometimes Darren, that's good enough. But with a long season ...

"He's been big since we got him back. He's kind of picked up where he left off when he was healthy."

On the reasons for the Orioles' continued success at home: "I don't know. I haven't thought about it a lot. When we get off this road trip, we'll have played, I think, seven or eight more games on the road than we will at home and we know at the end of the year we'll have played the same home and away. If you act like it's a given, that goes away. If you act like not winning enough on the road is something's that's going to happen all year, then that becomes something ...

"We just don't dwell on those things. We just take each game and there's been times we sat in this room the last two or three years and our record wasn't very good at home. What's that all about? If I knew ... It's not that easy to just dial it up. It's all about the body of the work. If you're not going to play particularly well on the road, you've got to play real well at home. We've played some good games on the road, too."

On beating playoff-caliber teams: "We're playing some good teams. If you look at our schedule, it's a top-rated schedule the rest of the way. You know what? Our guys are pretty good, too. They enjoy the competition. They don't shirk from it. They like people telling them they shouldn't be able to do it. They like proving people wrong. They've done that for quite a while."