Showalter: "I'm not looking for pretty, I'm looking for W"

The Orioles' magic number is down to 15. I'll keep going. Three straight winning seasons, which hasn't happened in Baltimore since 1992-94. They're 25 games above .500 and have won nine of 11 following tonight's 9-7 victory over the Reds. The sweep at Wrigley Field seems so long ago and so unimportant. Here's Orioles manager Buck Showalter, who took a question about J.J. Hardy's latest clutch hit and turned it into a defensive roll call: "Clutch hit and defensively. Probably the keys to the game, Nicky (Markakis) made two great catches in right, Jonesy (Adam Jones) ran down a ball in center that was a real difficult play, Ryan (Flaherty) made a good play at third and J.J. makes plays that are extremely difficult look easy. That's kind of what I take out of it. But J.J.'s had a lot of big hits for us. It's so hard to sweep a team. I don't care when it is. I thought Chris (Tillman) battled his way through it. Had a lot of borderline pitches." On the win not coming how the Orioles would draw it up "A W for Baltimore? That's the way I draw them up. They don't have to be aesthetically pleasing. At this stage, I'm not looking for pretty, I'm looking for W. I thought it was beautiful. I thought it was real pretty." On momentum swings "Everybody would like to pitch 6-0, but our guys don't ever assume anything like that. They know that they're going to make some runs at us. I thought (Jonathan Schoop') tack-on, and... I didn't feel like there was a huge momentum (swing) even when they tied it up. Our guys didn't panic. They strung some good at-bats together. J.J. had a big blow and we did a lot of good things to set it up. Alejandro (De Aza) had a good sac bunt to get the inning moving and Nicky seems like he's always in the middle of it leading off a left-handed pitcher." On 9-2 homestand "That's behind us. I look at Tampa. We'll take it on the road. That's another challenge. We've got 20-something games left and every one of them we'll grind them and accelerate on them. There's a challenge around every corner. We're going to face good pitching in Tampa and a team that's very difficult to play in Boston. We'll grind the guys we called up on the plane for two or three and get after Tampa tomorrow. But all that's in our rear-view mirror now. Got to keep looking forward." On Tillman "Tilly came out of the game after six innings with a 7-3 lead. I had some guys in the bullpen I didn't want to use and Brad (Brach) was a pitch away. In fact, I think he made it two or three times. Just didn't get the borderline call. Tommy (Hunter) got some big outs. I tell you, going back out there after giving up the lead, I tell you, Tommy pitched a key inning for us in the eighth. Gave up a leadoff double and stranded him. "Proud. There's a real will there to be satisfied with two out of three and they fought their way back, but our guys pushed back. We've being doing that a lot this year, pushing back."