Wrapping up a 5-2 win in Game 2

If a tie is like kissing your sister, what's splitting a doubleheader?

The Orioles did it today, winning the nightcap 5-2 before 29,862 at Camden Yards.

The good Ubaldo Jimenez showed up tonight. He held the Athletics to two runs over eight innings, scattering nine hits along the way and walking only one batter. He struck out the side in the eighth and left to a standing ovation.

Jimenez matched the Orioles' longest start of the season and lowered his ERA from 5.20 to 4.54 in 35 2/3 innings.

Zach Britton recorded his seventh save, getting two ground balls and a strikeout. The ankle certainly appears to be fine.

Hyun Soo Kim, batting second for the first time in the U.S., had an RBI grounder and a single. Manny Machado stroked his 15th double to lead the majors. Chris Davis homered for the second time since April 23. Adam Jones had an RBI single. Ryan Flaherty and Caleb Joseph each had a single and walk from the bottom two spots in the order.

Former Double-A Bowie pitcher Andrew Triggs, claimed off waivers by the A's, struck out the side in the eighth as their 26th man for Game 2. He disposed of Pedro Alvarez, Jonathan Schoop and Flaherty.

T.J. McFarland, optioned today and then used as the 26th man, will start Tuesday for Triple-A Norfolk.

Here's manager Buck Showalter:

On Jimenez: "He was solid, obviously. You all watched it. How many walks did he have, one? He dialed up something we needed. Anytime you're playing a doubleheader, you hope you get deep in the games with your starters so you don't pay the penalty for a long time. Sometimes with a doubleheader, it's a long time before you get back on your feet without any off-days coming, so that was, you couldn't ask for better.

"He emptied the tank in the eighth. That was his last hitter and he made a great pitch. The splitter was there. Caleb did a great job with it. Caleb had a big throw out. Ubaldo did a nice job of holding runners tonight. Two challenges he's had when he has had some this year has been the walks and some stolen bases."

On Jimenez just needing to throw strikes: "You've got to make sure they don't have some balls fall. His last outing he had about as good of stuff, but he was like Mike (Wright) in the first game. I asked both of them if they had gone to church this week because I don't think I've ever seen two pitchers pitch and have that kind of misfortune, so they've got some breaks coming to them. But they didn't hit a whole lot of balls hard and we made some good defensive plays.

"Chris continues to play first base like, you'd have to show me someone playing a better first base than him."

On the importance of starters now getting deeper in games: "It's big to keep what we think is a strength healthy in our bullpen. And it's also from a confidence level with all 25 guys, that we've got some guys who can do that, too. We know they're all capable of it. It's just a reminder of what they're capable of.

"Ubaldo arguably was our best pitcher last year. You could make a case for that. Was as good. (Wei-Yin) Chen was pretty good, obviously. He's gotten better as he's gotten further into being with the Orioles. He's been a guy who posts up every fifth day and he's always ready and you never have to worry about him on or off the field. He does his work. He's ready and he likes to compete."

On the difficult decision to option McFarland: "It's like I told Mac, it's nothing he hasn't done. He's kind of the guy with the option. We've come very close two or three games to harm's way, not having a bench. Just being able to get guys off the field the first game when it's obvious we weren't going to win that game, you couldn't do that. We were leaving guys on the field either way ahead or way behind. There's a lot of byproducts to that.

"The good part about is, Mac can't come back for 10 days, but he's going to start Tuesday in the doubleheader they have in Norfolk. Hopefully, he gets a couple starts there. Of course, he's already had a five-inning outing. I think it will be good for T.J. Now we'll start figuring out who to start on Wednesday."

On gaining a split: "I've got to tell you, I don't know if pressure's the word. You come into a doubleheader, you look at the percentage. It's hard to do. It's early in the season, but you're trying to win that second game because you don't want to go into tomorrow trying to salvage one game of a three-game set. Now you have a chance to win the series against obviously a good team. It puts a whole different perspective on the long day that we spent here.

"If I had to win only one of the two, I'd want to win the second one. Going home and sleeping for three hours and coming back."