Davis hits No. 2 as O's take lead in Toronto (Cruz hits grand slam)

Chris Davis is back in the homer column. After going seven games without one, Davis connected off Dustin McGowan in the top of the first tonight in Toronto as the Orioles took a 1-0 lead. Of course he hit one against the Blue Jays. Both of his homers this year have come against Blue Jays pitching. Davis has hit 18 homers in 40 games against Toronto since the start of the 2012 season. Davis had just one hit over his last 16 at-bats and four over his last 27 until he smashed a 2-2 slider out to center field. Chris Tillman pitched a scoreless first, working around a one-out double by Melky Cabrera. He threw 15 pitches, 10 for strikes. Tillman is 2-1 with a 1.71 ERA through his first four starts. He ranks seventh in the American League in ERA. Tillman has allowed three earned runs or fewer in 22 of his last 26 road games, with an ERA of 2.90. The Orioles are 3-1 this season when Tillman is the starter and 34-18 in his 52 starts since 2012 for a winning percentage of .654. The Orioles are just 1-3 this season against Toronto and they've scored only eight runs while batting just .211 in those games. Toronto has an ERA of 1.88 against the O's. The Orioles have hit just .138 (4-for-29) against Toronto in 2014 with runners in scoring position. They are batting .338 with RISP against every other team. Buck Showalter told reporters this afternoon in an interview that aired tonight on MASN that Manny Machado is expected to play for the Single-A Frederick Keys the entire weekend at home at Harry Grove Stadium. The Myrtle Beach pitcher scheduled to face Machado and the Keys on Friday is right-hander Victor Payano. He has walked 22 in just 12 innings pitched this year. Toronto with another big inning: Guess what? Another Toronto three-run homer and another Toronto big inning. That was unsettling for the O's, their fans and for Tillman. Brett Lawrie hit a three-run shot in the eighth inning last night and gave Toronto a 3-1 lead tonight in the second with another three-run homer. Lawrie began tonight batting just .135 and had only 11 hits on the season, but five are homers. After Tillman walked No. 9 hitter Ryan Goins, Jose Reyes homered to right to make it a 5-1 lead for the Jays. Toronto was not done, adding an RBI single by Edwin Encarnacion to make it a six-run inning for a 6-1 lead. The Blue Jays batted 11 men and had five hits in the second as Tillman threw 35 pitches in the inning. Tillman has now allowed 12 career homers over 38 1/3 innings in seven career starts at Rogers Center. O's battle back: So, this is the kind of night it is going to be. The offense continued in the top of the third as the O's pulled to within 6-3. Jonathan Schoop doubled - his team-leading seventh double - and scored on a Nick Markakis' single. Later Markakis, apparently looking to steal, broke too soon toward second and was picked off during a rundown. Nelson Cruz then homered cut the Jays' lead to 6-3. It was his fifth homer and 17th RBI of the season. Cruz has knocked in a run in six consecutive games, becoming the first Oriole to do so since Davis from Sept. 26 to Oct. 2, 2012. Cruz has 10 RBIs over those six games. Tillman is still in the game, but tonight he becomes the eighth starter over the last nine games that will not record a quality start. He did pitch a 1-2-3 last of the third to restore some order on the mound. Cruz with a slam: The Orioles, who were down 6-1 after two innings, took the lead in the top of the fifth scoring six times. They've scored eight unanswered runs since being down 6-1 and now lead 9-6. The bottom of the O's order reached on a walk, single and hit batter. Todd Redmond then came in to replace McGowan and got Markakis to pop up. But up came Cruz and out went the baseball. He hit his seventh career grand slam and turned a three-run deficit into a 7-6 lead with one swing. It was Cruz's second homer of the game, and sixth of the year. He now has 21 RBIs on the year and 14 over his last six games. The O's added two more runs in the inning on a Matt Wieters RBI double and a J.J. Hardy's sac fly that was caught at the left field wall. The Orioles had scored eight runs in four games this year against Blue Jays' pitching, and have nine runs tonight, and the lead going into the Blue Jays' fifth. Tillman out: After giving up that six-run second, Tillman settled down and pitched well, working into the sixth when he was taken out of the game with two outs. Ryan Webb came on to strikeout Edwin Encarnacion with two on to maintain a 9-7 lead. Earlier in the inning, Ryan Goins homered off Tillman. Tillman went 5 2/3 frames allowing nine hits and seven runs with two walks and seven strikeouts. He threw 92 pitches and gave up three homers. He had allowed just two homers in his first four starts. His ERA increased to 3.38. Wieters got the O's three-run lead back with a solo homer in the seventh, his fourth of the season. The Orioles lead 10-7. The Orioles four homers tonight is a season high and matches the total they had hit over the last 10 games. Meanwhile, if the lead holds and Tillman gets this win, it will be seventh time in Orioles history that a pitcher allowed seven earned runs got the win. The last time it happened, Koji Uehara was the winner on April 13, 2009.