Hearing from Showalter and Matusz after doubleheader split

The Orioles have four games remaining and are four below .500. The math is simple.

A poor performanace in Game 1 of today's doubleheader was followed by an 8-1 win in the nightcap, with Kevin Gausman holding the Jays to a Darwin Barney solo home run over eight innings. Mychal Givens worked the ninth after Gausman threw 98 pitches and struck out a career-high 10 batters.

"As poorly as we played in the first game is as well as we played in the second game, and like I've said many times, it starts with pitching," said manager Buck Showalter. "Regardless of who they ran out there tonight, I think Gaus would have had a real good outing. He was sharp. That's probably as good as he's been all year. He ended his season on a real good note.

"If Mychal hadn't been inactive for six days, he needed to pitch tonight. I might have let him try to finish."

Gausman tied his career high by lasting eight innings.

"We've talked many times about the process and things he goes through," Showalter said. "He's a tough self-critic, and he's very driven to be the pitcher that we need. He was solid. Matt (Wieters) said that's fun to catch. You can look real smart."

Gausman finishes the year 4-7 with a 4.25 ERA.

"It'll always be a process," Showalter said. "You don't ever say, 'This is as good...' It's like Wally (Dave Wallace) and I talk about, at some point in his career he's not going to throw 97-98 and you're hoping the other stuff you gain with experience, that when you're not carrying everything, it will offset that. The pitchablility is only going to get better and better. When he's exposed to things, he'll remember them and the challenge and how he met them.

"I have a lot of confidence that Kevin will be as good as he's capable of being. And who knows what that's going to be?"

Chris Davis homered twice in Game 2, giving him 45 on the season.

"I've said all along Chris is a body of work guy," Showalter said. "When you get through and step back, he can do a lot of things that not many people can do. He may go some at-bats and just not look aesthetically pleasing, but he's always one swing, one at-bat ... He squares up a ball, it goes where you can't defend it. Usually for a run.

"As much a lack of crispness to the first game, the second one was just the opposite. Our guys, I wouldn't say 'embarrassed,' but I think they didn't take the first game too well. We didn't pitch well and it can make you look that way. It's kind of a turnaround. Some of the things they did to us in the first game, we did to them."

Showalter explained the decision to move up Thursday's game from 7:05 p.m. to 12:05 p.m.

"The way I understand it, the weather gets increasingly worse after 4 o'clock and we want to put a four-hour window there, hopefully," he said. "Also, the challenge of the weather this weekend potentially with New York, you don't want to be playing doubleheaders against two different teams on Monday. It was our best chance to get the game in. Who knows what the weather could change, but all the things we have at our disposal, it seems smart to everybody to try to play at 12 tomorrow."

The Orioles will face right-hander Drew Hutchison instead of left-hander David Price, who's being pushed back.

The Jays returned to the field after the Game 2 loss to spray more champagne and pose for photos in front of the mound. The grounds crew was trying to complete its work for the night and didn't seem pleased.

I wrote earlier that Brian Matusz will undergo arthroscopic surgery on his right shoulder on Monday before returning home the following day.

"It's an arthritic right AC joint. They're going to do an arthroscopic surgery to repair it," he said.

"We want to do it early, right when the season ends, so just to get it done and get it out of the way, just to get it done and get back to training and get ready for next year. It's a pretty minor procedure. I think the rehab is pretty minimal for the most part. It's the external part of the shoulder, so there's nothing internal or anything serious.

"Usually spend the first month of the offseason just chilling. That way we want to get it done right away so we can use that time as a grace period to give it rest and allow it to recover."

The shoulder bothered Matusz in spring training and he received a cortisone injection.

"That kind of eliminated the pain for a while and then the cortisone shot wore off it and the pain started to come back," he said.

"It was shortly after the All-Star break, but it wasn't anything that hindered performance on the field. If anything, it resulted in backing off workouts. Basically, we restructured workouts around the shoulder."