Homer happy: O's tie franchise record with seven homers in win over Jays

With three big swings of the bat in the bottom of the fifth tonight, the Orioles got their offense started, took a big step toward a big win and gave a nervous fan base a reason to relax for a bit. They had several more big swings after that and hit seven homers on the night to tie the club record. The Orioles hit seven on Aug. 26, 1985 against the Angels and on May 19, 1967 versus Boston. One night after not scoring any runs, the O's bashed seven homers in a 12-2 romp over the Blue Jays. The night included two homers and five RBIs by Chris Davis. Davis set an Oriole record by hitting his eighth and ninth homers of the year against Toronto, the most by an Oriole ever in one season versus the Blue Jays. The Orioles went to the last of the fifth trailing 2-1 and with the Yankees winning this afternoon, would have fallen 2 1/2 games off the American League East lead with a loss. But after Jim Thome, Manny Machado and Davis all homered within a seven-batter span, the Orioles led 6-2 and were on their way to the win in front of 26,513 at Camden Yards. The Birds had scored just one run in the last 13 innings in the series when Thome led off the fifth with his 612th career homer to forge a 2-2 tie. Two outs later, Machado hit No. 5 to give the O's a 3-2 lead. Davis came up after singles by Nate McLouth and J.J. Hardy and hit a bomb out to center field for a 6-2 lead. It was Davis' 27th homer of the year and he is now 6-for-11 with three career homers and six RBIs off Toronto starter Carlos Villanueva. The onslaught continued after that. Mark Reynolds hit a two-run shot, his 23rd and 11th in the last 26 games, in the sixth. Davis hit a two-run shot in the seventh. Machado hit a two-run shot in the eighth for his second career two-homer game and a three-RBI night. Lost in all the offense was another strong outing by Miguel Gonzalez. He improved to 8-4 with an ERA of 3.45 giving up just two runs and five hits over seven innings. The Orioles are 10-4 in Gonzalez's 14 starts. The Orioles are now 63-11 when their starter delivers a quality start. Now the Orioles head into an off-day at 89-67 and with eight wins over their last 11 games, 22 in 32 and a record of 34-16 over the past 50 games. The Birds host Boston on Friday night when Chris Tillman (8-2, 3.08 ERA) pitches against Aaron Cook (4-10, 5.13 ERA).