Showalter on leadoff home runs, Tillman, Markakis and more (updated)

With the Blue Jays losing today in Houston, the Orioles now lead the American League East by 3 1/2 games. The Orioles improved to 43-10 when they score first, their .811 winning percentage leading the majors. Today marked the first time in club history that the Orioles won 1-0 on a leadoff home run. Nick Markakis reached the flag court in right field on the sixth pitch from Mariners starter Hisashi Iwakuma. Manager Buck Showalter can't recall winning a game after his first batter homered. "I was telling Richie (Bancells) about the fourth inning, I said, 'You know, I've never had a leadoff home run and won the game.' I said, 'But today's going to be the first, hopefully,' " Showalter said. "Not that I didn't have any confidence in us scoring another run. But Iwakuma... I could sit here and talk about everything he did. "He's got that little push kind of like Koji (Uehara) does out of there and the fastball gets on you. He elevates the ball in the right slot where you've got to elevate it when you throw the fastball. There's a little slot there that you can't get to. And split, slider, 2-0 breaking ball, curveball for a strike when he wants to, and we beat him." A first for Showalter? "You know, I'm 58," he said. "I may have forgotten one along the way and you guys will fact-check I'm sure and come up with 16 of them, but I dang sure don't remember them. I can tell you what, I've never lost a game when the other team hit a home run, the first batter. Check that one, too. I'm probably wrong." The Orioles have mostly been on the right side of the final score against the Mariners, Athletics and Angels, going 10-6. They've got a makeup game against the Nationals on Monday followed by a three-game series in Toronto. "They're good teams," Showalter said. "Anytime you can win more than you lose against them... They're pretty good. They're very good, as a matter of fact. "It doesn't stop tomorrow. We've got one of the better teams in the National League, and then the team right on us. So, sleep fast. Early bus. "It's kind of a challenge. We could have used the off-day tomorrow. I wish it was a day game, but they don't have to take that into consideration." Chris Tillman tossed seven scoreless innings for his ninth quality start in his last 11 outings. He improved to 2-5 with a 2.78 ERA at home. "Chris was solid," Showalter said. "I thought they did just enough to slow some guys down. He was carrying a pretty good fastball for this time of the year. He was touching 92, 93 and command of it. When Chris has command of the fastball, he's got a chance to do a lot of things. He's got a good hand. When you see him throw that changeup right on right, you know he feels pretty good about the ball coming out of his hand. Enough curveballs to keep it in their minds. And I thought the seventh inning was big for us." Markakis collected three hits, coming within a triple of the cycle, and exceeded 1,500 for his career. "We put up a thing in the advance room that nobody sees, Nick and how many Orioles are ahead of him in hits," Showalter said. "I don't even know if he's seen it yet, and if he did he would probably slip in there and take it down. "I hope everybody understands what we're watching here. We talk about some of those guys through the years that were solid Orioles, you've got to mention his name. Hopefully, for many years." Iwakuma allowed five hits in seven innings. How did Markakis get three of them? "If I knew that, I'd have a longer career," Showalter replied. "Nick doesn't try to do too much. He takes his ego out of hitting. He pitched him hard in the last at-bat and that's the one he'll come home with, thinking, 'What am I going to do to combat that?' "When you take your ego out of hitting and stick your nose in there with two strikes... Nicky doesn't like to strike out. He'll stick his nose in there with two strikes." Eight of the Orioles' last nine games have been decided by one run. Can they keep walking the tightrope without a bad fall? "That would be easy to say, yeah, and that's probably reality and how it's normally thought of, but we come here and say, 'We've got to score one more run than them,' " Showalter said. "It would be nice to score two more or three more or four more, but to be able to win games during a period when we're not able to do as much offensively as we're capable of... "As many times as we come here after a game knowing the offense picked up the pitching, it's kind of evened out. If we can get both going, as every team tries to do, which happens about two weeks a year, it would be a little more fun. I had fun today watching good pitchers pitch. If I'd have known how it was going to end, I could enjoy it a lot more." Note: The Orioles released Triple-A Norfolk outfielder Xavier Paul. They needed the roster space after optioning reliever Ryan Webb and sending Ubaldo Jimenez to the Tides for tonight's rehab start. Update: The Orioles actually won multiple times under Showalter after Nate McLouth hit leadoff home runs. How soon we forget. Today marked the Orioles' first 1-0 win at Camden Yards since May 9, 2007 against the Rays on Aubrey Huff's walkoff home run in the 10th inning.