Trumbo's praise for Mancini and other postgame quotes

The baseball was carrying today at Camden Yards. But the Orioles were able to outscore St. Louis 8-5 on a day when both teams hit four homers.

Several Orioles had impressive days on offense, but after his three-RBI day that included a two-run homer, veteran Mark Trumbo threw some nice praise the way of rookie Trey Mancini.

Mancini flicked his wrist at a 94 mph Lance Lynn fastball and drove it over the right-field wall in the second inning. He hammered his first career triple to center in the fifth. He is batting .310 for the season and .429 (15-for-35) during a nine-game hitting streak.

"He's one of those rare talents that just is born to barrel a baseball," Trumbo said. "He's line to line. Great two-strike hitter. He's going to have a big season and nice career because he has this innate ability to make hard contact and spray the ball around. Makes for a tough challenge for the pitchers."

Trumbo hit his 10th homer in the Orioles' four-run fifth when they turned a 3-2 lead into 7-2 game. He is the sixth Oriole with 10 or more homers and the O's join the Yankees as the only teams in baseball with six players to have hit 10 or more home runs.

The longball was back in this series for the Orioles. While their pitchers gave up 12 homers, their hitters bashed 10, nine of which came the last two days when they scored 23 runs. Homers, as we know, are vital to the Orioles offense.

"I think it is," Trumbo said. "You know it is a part of what we do. Hasn't been quite as what we did in previous years so far, but this series we looked like the team we are capable of."

The Orioles went 9-for-18 with runners in scoring position over the past two days.

Seth Smith led off the game with a homer for the Orioles, his third leadoff homer of the year and fifth of his career. Smith talked about his homer and importance of getting the last two wins.

"It is always good to get on the board early," he said. "Get the ball rolling and any time I can help with that, I'm glad to. Every win is important. They feel a little more so after a tough stretch. In reality, we need to start winning some games and everyone knows that. So it's good to win the last two."

Right-hander Ubaldo Jiménez, making his first start since May 22, produced just his second quality start of the year and the Orioles' second in the past 13 games. He gave up four hits and two runs over seven innings and the fans gave him a standing ovation after the the top of the seventh.

"It felt great," Jiménez said. "It felt good, especially today is Father's Day, so it was a good day. I understand that it's part of the game. When things are not going the way you want them to go, of course you're not going to have a lot of people rooting for you."

But he did today, as he improved to 2-2 with a 6.25 ERA with his second-longest outing of 2017. He threw 106 pitches, 59 strikes.

"I had a good sinker. Sinker was down in the zone and everything else was working after that," he said. "Felt pretty good. I mean, like I've said before, it doesn't matter how things are going for me. I just want to fight. Doesn't matter where I am, I'm going to try to do the best I can. It felt good to be able to be there for the team today."

The last time the Orioles hit 10 or more homers during a three-game series was the 10 they hit Sept. 11-13, 2015 versus Kansas City. Mancini and Adam Jones both tripled in the fifth inning today. The last two-triple inning for the Orioles was Aug. 14, 2009 by Felix Pie and Cesar Izturis.

The Orioles are 34-34 overall and 23-11 at Oriole Park, including a 6-1 home mark in games against the National League.

The Orioles extended a dubious team record today. They have allowed five runs or more for 15 consecutive games. During that time they have allowed 117 runs, for an average of 7.8 per game.