Buck Showalter: "Without a doubt, that was fun"

The Orioles went 4-5 on their West Coast trip and were no-hit in the final game in Seattle. They're 2-0 on the current homestand and have produced a pair of walk-off home runs. They now trail the Angels by a half-game for the second wild card.

Baseball is a funny game.

Chris Davis homered twice tonight, including a two-out shot off Oakland switch-pitcher Pat Venditte in the bottom of the ninth that gave the Orioles a 4-3 win before a sellout crowd of 44,028 at Camden Yards.

Manny Machado produced a walk-off home run last night. Davis did the same tonight after Gerardo Parra tied the game with his first Camden Yards home run in the sixth, Miguel Gonzalez survived a rocky start to go seven innings, and Darren O'Day and Zach Britton each tossed a scoreless inning.

Gonzalez walked the bases loaded in the fifth before inducing a double play grounder from Billy Butler. He struck out the next four batters and retired seven in a row.

Baseball really is a funny game.

What's left to say about Davis, who upped his home run total to 34?

"I'll let you all say it. I'll jinx him," said manager Buck Showalter.

"We've had a lot of people, obviously Chris, dialing up what we need, enough to get us over the hump. I thought probably one of the keys tonight was Miggy. That was a makeup outing there. That's where you just find a way to get through it. To think he was going to give us seven innings and keep us engaged.

"We were down 3-0 in that game, but that really lets an offensive team kind of pin their ears back and go at it, and Miggy held them at bay and gave us a chance to get back in it. That was just a tribute to his makeup. He was going on an extra day, so that was good."

Gonzalez hadn't gone more than 5 1/3 innings in eight of his last 10 starts.

"It's just a little bit of command," Showalter said. "Now whether or not there's too much want-to that's creating some of that, I don't apologize for him for that. Because that is a makeup, that is who you are. That's why we like Miggy and he's not going to wallow around in self-pity. He's going to go, 'The club needs me to get through some innings.'

"He was frustrated and he found another button. I can't tell you how hard that is to maintain that when he was a pitch away from coming out of the game two or three times and he found a way to give us what the club needed. That's a special outing by the starting pitcher tonight."

Jonathan Schoop turned the double play in the fifth with Josh Reddick bearing down on him.

"He got a ground ball from a good hitter and Jon turned it with a guy right on top of him, which he's been doing all year," Showalter said. "He had a good runner at first. It's not the back end you worry about, it's the front end with the runner on top of him. The guy made a great slide and Jon just stood in there like an oak tree and completed it."

Davis still garnered most of the attention tonight with his latest power display, which earned him an ice water bath at home plate and a pie in the face during his MASN interview. Davis has 15 home runs in his last 23 games and six home runs in his last six.

"He's done this before," Showalter said. "He had good periods last year, he had good periods the year before. And over in Texas. The thing I've been most proud of is where his batting average is (.259).

"It's not only him. Other guys are dialing it up. I thought Parra obviously had a big home run. I knew coming in their guy (Chris Bassitt) was impressive out there. I knew we were going to have to pitch well tonight to stay in it."

Venditte switched to southpaw against Davis, but those matchups don't matter.

"He's a threat against both of them," Showalter said. "He's always capable of squaring up a ball and hitting it out of the park. I think the left-right part of it, I don't think he looks at it as someone having an advantage over him."

Davis and the Orioles whipped the eighth sellout crowd of the season into a frenzy.

"Without a doubt, that was fun," Showalter said. "Any time you see that much orange in the dugout and that loud of an 'O,' you want to give them something to return the faith and support they have in you."

What does it say when a club produces back-to-back walk-off home runs?

"It kind of reaffirms what I've already been saying," Showalter said. "There's an ebb and flow to it. It's you're never as bad as a certain moment in the season, you're never as good as a certain moment. I just want to have the type of people that are going to seek their level, that are capable of it and I think we have those guys.

"Whatever it ends up being, we will be who we are. I think we have some people that want to get back to where we were last year. It's that time of year."