The O's latest impressive wins come in D.C.

For all the Orioles fans that can remember when it seemed like a .500 record was much too much to ask for, what must they be thinking now watching their team at 27-14 and leading the American League East by two games? Everyone is chasing the Orioles right now, who own the AL's best record. Heavy stuff for a team working on a 14-season losing streak. Just in the last week or so, the Orioles continued to do impressive things daily and nightly. After losing a series to Texas, they took two of three from Tampa Bay in a first-place showdown. After losing Game 1 of a series to the Yankees, the next night they beat CC Sabathia, who was 16-2 against them, by a 5-2 score to improve to 13-7 against the AL East. The Orioles are meeting every challenge, it seems. They went to Kansas City at a time when the Royals had won four in a row by a 24-6 score and were coming off a two-game sweep of Texas. No problem, two wins in two days, even if it took 24 innings. Next it was on to Washington, where the Nats featured the best ERA in the majors and have been a first-place contender all year. Plus, the Nats entered this series with one of the best home records in the majors at 14-5. So all the O's did was pull out two close wins in the series' first two games. They won a low-scoring game Friday and slugged their way to an early lead Saturday night and held off the Nats late. There doesn't seem to be a team they can't beat or a way they can't win right now. Some other notes on the team: * Adam Jones now has at least one RBI in six straight games. Over his past 11 games, he is batting .362 (17-for-47) with six homers and 12 RBIs. Jones has eight homers and 17 RBIs over his last 15 games. * Xavier Avery has hit safely in five of his seven games since arriving from Triple-A. He is 8-for-24 since going 0-for-4 in his major league debut. * Robert Andino was 5-for-38 over a 10-game stretch and had no RBIs over his last 11 games before going 2-for-5 with two RBIs in Saturday's win at Washington. * The Orioles' five-game win streak matches their season best. They also won five in a row from May 1-5 at New York and Boston. * The Orioles became the first team this year to get six runs off any Nats starter. Ross Detwiler gave up six runs and nine hits over five innings last night. It was the most runs allowed by a Nats starter since John Lannan gave up six last September 10. * The Orioles are now 12-0 in road games when they score four runs or more and 21-4 overall in those games. * The Orioles are winners of seven of their last nine, 13 of the past 18 and 19 of their last 26 games. They are now 10-3-1 in series.