A few notes and quotes on series-opening win over Houston

Orioles shortstop J.J. Hardy did not want to say the Orioles needed it, but they pretty much did. They came off back-to-back losses to Boston where they scored four runs in two games and had dropped into third place. Since the All-Star break, the O's offense ranked near the bottom or at the bottom of the league in several categories.

A night of big offense was needed and they got it against Houston. It came against the same team that when they played at Houston in May, the Orioles set a major league record for striking out 52 times in three games.

Last night, they struck out five times. And hit six homers. That is a ratio they can live with.

How badly needed was it?

"I don't want to say need," Hardy said after his two-homer game. "It was definitely nice. We had not been swinging all that great. To bust out like that tonight, hopefully it keeps going and we keep that confidence ... Maybe just try not to do too much. I don't think we went out there to do what we did tonight. I think it just kind of happened. So if we put too much pressure on ourselves to do that every night, I don't think it's going to happen."

The Orioles scored 10 runs or more for the 11th time and they matched their season high of 13 runs on June 1 against Boston. The Orioles' nine extra-base hits is a season high as they hit two doubles, a triple and six homers. The season high for most homers is seven on June 2 versus Boston.

Chris Davis hit two homers last night and now has homered in three of his last four at-bats. Every O's fan knows what a hot-hitting Davis could mean for the lineup.

The Orioles have scored 41 runs the last seven games. That is an impressive 6.8 per game in that small sample. But in that span, they have had three games of eight or more runs and three games of three or fewer.

The Orioles offense is something to watch when they are rolling. They scored 10 runs in three innings in a game recently in Chicago. They scored seven runs in the last three innings on Sunday at San Francisco to rally from six runs down. But they also scored three total runs in a three-game span against Oakland. They scored four in losing two straight to Boston.

A consistently strong performance would be nice, but at this point, that seems unlikely. It's a boom-or-bust attack, and when they are bashing homers, the boom cycle is fun to watch.

Houston has lost five in a row. The Astros are 7-16 over their last 23 games. The Orioles lost to a hot Red Sox team. Now they have to try and get back on track against a currently struggling Houston team.

They moved back into a second-place tie with Boston last night. They are on a 90-win pace and are 1 1/2 games out of first place with 42 to play.