The final words on an 8-5 win

KANSAS CITY - Music played in the visiting clubhouse at Kauffman Stadium tonight. The televisions were tuned to baseball games. Players sat at tables and dined together, plastic containers shared by one group that preferred homemade rice dishes.

The Orioles no longer sat in silence. They no longer were tucked away in areas off limits to the media. They seemed happy again.

Losers of their six previous games, the Orioles busted out tonight by hitting five home runs in an 8-5 victory over the Royals. They can split the series on Thursday before heading to Texas.

The five home runs were the most since they hit eight on June 16 against the Phillies. Manny Machado, Jonathan Schoop, Chris Davis, Steve Pearce and Ryan Flaherty did the damage. Machado tied the game in the third and Schoop put the Orioles ahead in the fourth with a shot to left field measured at 427 feet by the Royals and 484 feet according to a Statcast estimation.

"I think I got it pretty good," Schoop said, smiling. "I think I still got a little bit more."

The six-game losing streak is no more. And it ended despite the Orioles failing to score after putting runners on the corners with no outs in the second and sixth innings.

"That's big," Schoop said. "That's why we are here for each other and we believe in everybody and everybody came through. It's big for us. In the (second) inning we didn't score, but we came back and tried to have good at-bats.

"Every time you win, there is happiness. You win, everybody is happy. No matter if you go 0-for-6, you are happy."

Schoop had reason to smile after launching his two-run shot.

"I'm just trying to get some good at-bats and get some good pitches to drive," he said. "I'm just trying to get good pitches to hit and trying to get on base or trying to do damage.

"How many homers did we hit? Pretty good. If you hit five home runs, it's a pretty good game.

"Every time we step on the field we want to do our best. We want to complete, we want to win. It feels good to get five home runs today."

Pearce has collected four hits, including tonight's solo shot in the eighth, in two starts since coming off the disabled list.

"I feel great," he said. "Just had the rough injury earlier and I'm just glad to be back and able to help and play the baseball I'm able to play."

Pearce hadn't hit a home run since July 11.

"Yeah, it's definitely been a while," he said. "It feels good to contribute. There were a lot of people trotting around the bases tonight. It was just good to break out the way we did."

Maybe this is enough to get the Orioles on a much-needed roll.

"Definitely," Pearce said. "We needed it. We knew this win was big for us. It was big for the team. Now, we have the chance to tie the series up tomorrow and that's something we definitely need to do."

The home runs changed the momentum after the Royals grabbed a 2-0 lead in the second.

"It feels great, and we built off of it," Pearce said. "The other team, they tried to keep coming back and we kept responding also. We can't let up against this team. This is a good team. No matter how big the lead is, we have to keep our foot on the gas pedal."

Manager Buck Showalter said he didn't feel a sense of relief.

"That means that it's not going to happen again," he said.

"There's another challenge around the corner. I couldn't have told you the number (of losses in a row). There's so much negativism around you when things are going poorly and there's so much over-postiveness when things are going well. You try to stay in reality, but because of the reality of how many games we have left and where we're trying to get, it does put a different spin on it at this time of the year."

Asked about Schoop's homer, Showalter said, "It's a little reminder of what we lost for a long period of time. Jon, you can see early in the season he was getting to do that. He hasn't had 200 at-bats yet. Jon's a strong young man that approaches it the right way. I feel comfortable he will be as good as he's capable of being. That's comforting not just to me, but for the fans of the Orioles."

Davis was 0-for-16 with nine strikeouts before his double and home run.

"He's battling some real blisters with all the BP he's taken to try and get it going again," Showalter said. "He didn't even take BP today because of that. It's a reminder how hard these guys are grinding. Because you don't hear about it and you don't see it all the time, it doesn't mean they're not trying to make it happen yesterday."

The game seemed to turn when Adam Jones ran down Alcides Escobar's long fly ball to center field in the second inning and completed the double play when Omar Infante passed Paulo Orlando on the basepaths. The Royals already had scored twice. The Orioles immediately tied the game in the top of the third.

"Those type of things, it's over-aggressiveness," Showalter said. "More times than not you get a real advantage with how aggressive they are. Tonight, it wasn't."

Wei-Yin Chen allowed three runs and 10 hits in 6 2/3 innings for his 17th quality start of the season and fourth in a row.

"I think my breaking ball was working good enough today, so I was able to mess up the hitters' timing. Also, Matt (Wieters) called a great game for me, so I think that's also one of the reasons," Chen said through his interpreter.

"Not only the hitters, I think everybody's doing great today, including our bullpen and our defense. And for myself, I think there's maybe something with my control I can improve, but I think today everybody was doing great and it was a team effort."

Chen said he didn't give much thought to the losing streak.

"Every day we come here to the ballpark, all we think about is how to win today's game. And I think maybe today's game we had some miscues during the previous games, but I think today everybody is doing well and hopefully we can move up from here," he said.

A winning clubhouse makes for a happy clubhouse.

"Before today's game, the mood hasn't been all that great," Chen said, "but I believe from now on it will be great."