Showalter, Trumbo, Jones and Gallardo wrap up 12-6 win

SAN DIEGO - Orioles manager Buck Showalter said the club will make "at least" one roster move before Thursday night's series opener against the Mariners in Seattle.

Vance Worley is meeting up with the team and will be activated from the disabled list. The Orioles could option reliever Oliver Drake, who's pitched in back-to-back games and allowed six runs and five hits in 2 1/3 innings.

Showalter noted after today's 12-6 win over the Padres that he wanted to avoid getting another reliever up with a big lead, but he needed Mychal Givens to record the final out in the ninth after Drake surrendered three runs in two-thirds of an inning.

Not much else went wrong for the Orioles (47-30), who ran their winning streak to seven games to tie their season high and extended their lead over the Red Sox and Blue Jays to 5 ½ games in the American League East.

Much of the talk centered on the club's 55 home runs in June to tie the record held by the 1996 Athletics. Reporters are doing most of the talking, of course.

"Some guys are aware, some aren't," said Mark Trumbo, whose 23rd home run, a two-run shot in the fourth, produced the 55th this month.

"It's obviously, it's a special thing, but it's not something that anyone is going to gloat about or spend too much time thinking about. It just goes to show that we're on a nice little run."

"We still have another day in June according to my calculations, right?" said Adam Jones, who singled twice, walked, drove in a run and scored twice. "Might be able to break a major league record for home runs. But I look at it as just passing the baton. Just having good at-bats.

"There's been good times and bad times, but over the last 20-30 games we've all clicked together. Had some good at-bats. I think that's No. 1. Go up there and not give away any at-bats. We've had a lot of at-bats 0-2 and work ourselves back to 2-2 and 3-2 and find our way back into getting ourselves into a hitters count. Just pass the baton."

Starter Yovani Gallardo allowed runs and three hits in six innings, and he also singled twice to uphold his reputation as a threat at the plate. It was Gallardo's first career multi-hit game.

"Today, Gallardo's the one who's hitting," Jones said. "He got two knocks. I think he hit the hardest ball of the day, his single to left.

"We're just feeding off each other. When you're going good it's easier to do, when you're going bad, that's when you're really got to find yourself. Right now it's easy. It's a little easier to come to the park and play because we're playing well, so just keep it up.

"We're getting hits. That's the thing. We're just trying to square the ball up and not just try to hit home runs. If you look at a lot of home runs we've hit have been line drives. And if you look at a lot of the hits we've had, they've been line drives, so just trying to hit the ball hard. And the guys we've got, we've got some boys 6-3, 230 and above. We've probably got five or six of them guys, so when you hit line drives, they have a tendency to get up a little more trajectory and get out of the park."

The home runs and the records mean a lot more when the club is winning. The Orioles moved 17 games above .500 today.

"Always," Trumbo said. "When you're winning, everything is that much better. This in particular. It's a product of a couple guys getting real hot, real quick and some other guys sustaining what we've been doing."

The best lineup he's been part of in his career?

"Easily, yeah. Consistently, too," Trumbo said. "There's just not too many teams that are going to be able to do what we do and it's kind of the best-case scenario of what we were looking for going into the season.

"We're getting contributions from everyone. I think there's full confidence in one to nine throughout this lineup. There's really no holes. You can choose to go at someone or pitch around someone, but the guys who are behind them have generally been pretty good at picking up the slack. Anytime you're that deep, it can make for a tough time for opposing pitchers."

Jonathan Schoop is torturing them. He had two more doubles today to go with an RBI and three runs scored to raise his average to .301. He's 23-for-47 (.489) during an 11-game hitting streak, with seven doubles, three home runs and nine RBis. The streak is one shy of his career long on Sept. 7-16, 2015.

"Ah, it's fun to watch him play," Jones said. "Him and Manny (Machado) together. Schoop definitely doesn't get the attention. Obviously, Manny gets more attention because of a couple more years, but Schoop's special. He's playing special right now. I'm just going to try to keep him level-headed and keep him grinding."

Moving up Schoop to second in the order has increased the lineup's potency. Jones, Schoop, Machado, Chris Davis, Trumbo. Good luck pitching to them.

"You look right there, there are five guys who are really aggressive and you've got to throw strikes right now," Jones said. "Right now, we're laying off the bad pitches and forcing the pitchers to throw them over the plate. And right now we're not missing it. So, if we can just continue to do that, or if we can get at least three of the four or three of the five doing that, we'll be in good shape."

Jones is 18-for-44 (.409) during his 10-game hitting streak, with two doubles, three home runs and 10 RBIs. Machado is 21-for-40 (.525) during his nine-game hitting streak. Trumbo has 23 home runs this season in 77 games after hitting 22 last year in 142 games.

Gallardo now has sole possession of third place on the all-time wins list for Mexican-born pitchers with 105. He was tied with Ismael Valdez. Fernando Valenzuela is first with 173 and Esteban Loaiza is second with 126.

"He's throwing the ball through the target instead of to it," Showalter said. "You can see more confidence in his fastball and location. That was one of the highlights of the day to me. Did a couple tours of the bases that probably caught up with him in the sixth. That's not the first time he had two hits. He can swing the bat."

Gallardo has been better in each of his three outings since coming off the disabled list. The velocity is much better than he exhibited in spring training and the start of the season.

"Yeah, I felt good," he said. "I think the ball was coming out pretty good out of my hand. Even early in that first inning, I had a good slider going. I was able to locate it and just also my fastball felt pretty good coming out of my hand. Just locating those pitches allowed me to get some weak contact."

Gallardo made solid contact when he lined a single into left field in the fifth inning. He had a broken-bat single in the sixth.

"It was good," he said. "I enjoy doing it. Anytime I get the opportunity to do something like that and help myself out and help the team out, I'm definitely going to do whatever I can. It's just one of those things (where) you just try to put the ball in play and that's what happened today. Running the bases out there was definitely different, but it was fun."

Sort of like hitting in his lineup.

"Being out there on the bases, you've got to be ready for anything," he said. "Schoopy hits that one down the line when I was on first. It's fun and it's an exciting group, and we've seen the things that they're capable of doing and putting up runs throughout the game. Its just one of those things. I give up three runs in the sixth inning and they come back and get them back and get more.

"It's fun and it's exciting for us to see as a staff and like I've always said, it's just giving them a chance to swing the bat and see what they can do and they showed it.

"It's one of the best (offenses). I think if you look at the lineup we have, it's not an easy lineup. It's one through nine, all the guys can hit for power. Some guys hit for average. There's no easy breaks throughout the lineup and they've showed that.

"Putting up numbers like that, it's always a good feeling as a starting pitcher (knowing) you can give up a couple runs and the guys are going to come back and they can do that. They can put up three, four, five runs in one inning, so you're never really out of the ballgame."

And the Orioles don't sacrifice defense in the process.

"The thing I like about it is guys who are capable of hitting the ball out of the park play above-average defense," Showalter said. "That's unusual, with Manny and Jon and Chris and J.J. (Hardy) and Adam, (Matt) Wieters. Most guys with that kind of pop, it's hard to find five or six guys with above-average defense. That's the separator for us.

"Jon was talking about this yesterday, they've really taken on this pass-the-baton. It's not selfish. It's that feeling that the weight of expectations is not just on me. That's why guys hitting .220 with 30 or 40 home runs walk so much. Power is a thing that makes guys stay out of the strike zone."