Jimenez on his outing and more clubhouse quotes from Toronto

TORONTO - Once a house of horrors for Baltimore Orioles pitchers, the O's just won a series at Rogers Centre and scored only eight runs in three games.

But the Orioles pitching staff allowed just seven runs (five earned) and 18 hits in three games, capping it off with tonight's 4-0 shutout on three hits.

The Orioles won the last two games of this series and leave town tied with the Blue Jays at 87-72 for the first American League wild card spot with three games to play.

They pitched to an ERA of 1.73 in this series and the Orioles have allowed just 11 runs in winning five of the last six games.

Right-hander Ubaldo Jimenez, who lasted just 1/3 of an inning in this ballpark in June, tonight held Toronto to one hit over 6 2/3 innings with three walks and five strikeouts. He pitched a gem in one of the biggest games of the year while at Rogers Centre, where his career ERA was 8.41 at gametime.

"It felt great," he said of pitching so well in a big game. "There's no words to put it (in perspective) but amazing. All of the guys, they know what we are playing for and everyone is doing their parts, especially the last two games. Everything was good, the sinker was down. All my breaking balls were good. I was able to throw it ahead in the count, behind in the count. In any count."

Jimenez improved to 8-12 with an ERA of 5.44. But over his last seven starts, he is 3-2 with an ERA of 2.45 and six quality starts. He has now recorded 17 straight innings without allowing an earned run.

Jimenez has said often he never looks back, only ahead. He doesn't worry about his past struggles or the game here on June 12 when he lasted 1/3 of an inning and gave up five runs.

"That's the main thing for me is I have a lot of faith," he said. "It doesn't matter how many times you fall they say, it's how many times you get up. That's something I've always put in my head. I thank God every day for giving me the strength to find a way to fight and recover.

"Whatever happened for me in the past, I don't even think about that. That's the approach I've always had. If you get stuck in the past, you don't have the energy to move on."

His outing allowed an Orioles team that looked like it was playing its way out of the postseason in the late innings last night to now tie the Blue Jays and still hold hopes of not only making the postseason, but hosting the wild card game next week.

"It is big," Jimenez said. "There's no doubt about it, whoever has the ball that day. we have to go with everything we have. Every game counts right now, especially we only have three more games to go, we have to go with everything. And every game is big."

Here are some more clubhouse quotes:

Manager Buck Showalter on Jimenez: "How do you describe that outing? That's seven in a row for him now. We were trying to decide how we wanted to go with pitching, the deciding factor was going with the hot hand, regardless of how someone has pitched in a ballpark. That kind of overrides that.

"Boy was he solid. He gave Matt (Wieters) a lot of weapons to work with tonight. He had both sides of the plate, stayed aggressive, didn't let them get comfortable off him and you could tell he was a confident pitcher tonight."

Showalter on Jimenez getting out of first inning jam: When you're a confident pitcher and you know you're carrying that kind of stuff ... A lot of time, you're right it is big to get that first inning under your belt and get that positive feeling early on. He was just fun to watch ... he was the hot pitcher."

Michael Bourn on grabbing the series momentum in the ninth last night: "I think it was big. We just take it one day at a time and let it carry over to today. Now we'll try to let it carry over to tomorrow, too, and hopefully just continue to play good baseball. Be behind each other one step at a time, one at-bat at a time and grind the game out."

Bourn on there still being more work to do: "We feel good. We're supposed to right now, but the job isn't done. We're happy about tonight and yesterday, but you have to continue to stay focused. That's the big key. We're going to New York. We'll be happy on the flight, but we still have to take care of business tomorrow. It's good we won the series, but everything is not finished."

Wieters on series win and now on to New York: "It's big. New York was going to be a big series no matter what, but now we go in there and try to win as many games as we can and win Friday and see where it goes from there. It would be nice to be able to get that wild card game at home if we can."

Wieters on the momentum swing that started last night: "This time of year, momentum is huge. Over 162, momentum is going to come and go, but once you start getting to the playoffs, momentum is big. We're going to try to keep it going as long as we can, keep the momentum going when you're going good and when you're not going good, you've got to stop that and turn it around."