Miley's quality start and four home runs produce 7-5 win (updated)

Wade Miley broke through the fifth-inning wall. Chris Davis showed more signs of busting out of his slump. Manny Machado caught a break with an infield single that gave him two hits.

The Orioles took an early lead and didn't crumble, riding Miley's quality start and four home runs to a 7-5 victory over the Red Sox before an announced crowd of 20,150 at Camden Yards.

Jackie Bradley Jr. hit a three-run homer off left-hander Donnie Hart with two outs in the ninth to raise the tension level, but Pablo Sandoval grounded to Machado.

Mark Trumbo hit a two-run shot off left-hander Eduardo Rodriguez in the first. Davis hit his second home run in two nights, a solo shot in the fourth. Adam Jones led off the sixth with his second home run in two nights. And Jonathan Schoop crushed a changeup later in the inning for a three-run blast deep into the left field seats.

Rodriguez was finished, the former Orioles farmhand battered like never before at Camden Yards. In six career starts, he had allowed only five runs over 33 2/3 innings and surrendered one home run. The four home runs tonight matched his career high.

A MASN camera showed Rodriguez fall as he was warming in the visiting bullpen before the game. It was a nasty spill - the kind that usually requires an electronic alert to get back on your feet. He didn't seem to have the same leg kick and was tentative while chasing Machado's roller up the third base line.

The Orioles weren't offering any sympathy. They've won three of their last four games to improve to 28-24. And they weren't subjected to anymore nonsense in the form of fastballs thrown behind hitters. Nothing of the retaliatory nature. Pitches and slides were clean.

Rodriguez's final line was the only mess.

Miley had gone five innings in five of his 10 starts and three of the last four. However, he made it through the seventh tonight on 109 pitches and handed a 7-1 lead to Mike Wright.

Miley allowed five hits, walked only one batter - he led the American League with 31 before tonight - and struck out three.

The only run against Miley came in the second on Sam Travis' leadoff single, a throwing error on Davis that let him go to second base and Christian Vázquez's two-out single.

Who needs a shutdown inning anyway?

Miley retired 11 of the last 12 batters and lowered his ERA from 3.02 to 2.82 in 60 2/3 innings.

Wright retired the side in order on nine pitches in the eighth, just as Miley did in his first inning, but he gave up three singles in the ninth, the last from Vázquez with two outs that scored Hanley Ramirez and brought Hart into the game.

Miley threw 30 pitches in the second, but became more economical while turning in his fifth quality start.

The Orioles have outscored their opponents 17-5 in the last two nights and are only a half-game behind the Red Sox for second place in the AL East. Rumors of the season being over in May were false.

Update: The Orioles improved to 20-11 versus the American League East.

Pedro Álvarez told The Virginian-Pilot that his opt-out date has been extended.

Here's a sampling from manager Buck Showalter:

On Miley: "Miley was good, huh. He walked one guy? Did they walk anybody? That's probably the least number of walked game we've had this year. Wade, first inning, as he got that under the belt, he kind of ... I thought the sixth and seventh innings were really big. We were trying to stay away from some people tonight, like you always are."

On approach vs. Rodriguez: "Yeah, I don't know if we caught ... This guy is one of the top 10 ERAs in the American League, which makes it baseball for me. We saw the thing before the game down in the bullpen, so I don't know if we caught him at full strength. But he was still pretty good. Our guys, the mistakes he did make our guys put a good swing on it for them to leave the park."

On whether this is how you'd draw it up: "It's not necessarily where you draw up home runs. It's just you're going to have to score runs in our division. We were 6-4 in our division in May, 20-11 for the year. There's not a recipe every night. It may sound that way when you take the body of work. That's the way it may look over the course of a season and rightfully so, but it doesn't always work that way. Especially as good as the pitching we've seen the last 10 or 15 games and will see the rest of this series."

On Trumbo and Davis homering in same game for second time: "It's a luxury anytime you have two people homer in a game regardless of who they are. I don't take it for granted. It's hard to do. You take a guy who hits 30 home runs, that's a good home run year and you have 600 or 700 plate appearances, what percentage of those are home runs? Mark's a guy who may get off course a little bit, but he doesn't stay there very long. He's got a pretty good approach, and Chris little by little seems to be getting a better feel for it."