Wrapping up a 6-5 win

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - The Orioles won't go 162-0 this season, but they're keeping the dream alive.

Zach Britton struck out the side in the bottom of the ninth inning to preserve a 6-5 win over the Rays at Tropicana Field and assure a series victory.

Kevin Gausman allowed two runs and one hit in 2 1/3 innings, with two walks and four strikeouts, to earn the win. Darren O'Day retired all four batters he faced and Britton blew away the Rays.

"We feel like if our starters give us six innings, we feel pretty good about our chances to win, especially with a lead," Gausman said. "We just kind of all try to push each other out there. That's what's fun. It's fun to watch. I think we're all fans of each other.

"I love watching Darren pitch because he's completely different than me, and also watching Britton. The amount of movement he gets on a fastball, it's like a cartoon. It's like a video game. It's crazy."

Gausman's fastball touched 101 mph twice during Evan Longoria's at-bat in the fifth inning.

"I think last time I pitched was last Tuesday," Gausman said. "I definitely had my rest. I felt good. Also adrenaline, first game out had something to do with it."

The Orioles would like to get Gausman in the rotation, but there's no room unless they trade a starter or an injury occurs. He's pitched in relief with the Orioles and has adapted to it.

"I've done it a pretty good bit in my career already, so I felt comfortable with my routine, my warmup," he said. "I felt pretty comfortable with it, so it's really just getting the first one out of the way."

Gausman began warming up in the fourth inning as starter Wei-Yin Chen struggled, and he got into the game with two on and one out in the fifth.

"Actually, I thought I was going to be in earlier than that," he said. "They were like, 'Be ready for the second hitter,' and I didn't come in until the third hitter, which isn't that big of a difference. But I think the first time you come into a game with guys on base, it's kind of good to get that first one out of the way, especially for me starting off spring, it's definitely good to get the first relief appearance out of the way, get the jitters, warming up, get them out of the way."

Gausman's biggest mistake came on Kevin Kiermaier's two-run homer in the fifth.

"It was middle, middle pretty much and 3-1, that's a hitters count," Gausman said. "Probably should have made a better pitch than that. Put a good swing on it. That's really all I can say."

Chen was upset that he didn't attempt to turn a double play in the second on Rene Rivera's bouncer to the mound. He threw to first as if forgetting the number of outs, and it forced him to further run up his pitch count.

"I can't say what happened out there, but I think it's that I got too much caught up in that play," Chen said through his interpreter. "The double play, I should have got it, but I failed to get it. I think that's the main point of why it happened tonight."

Chen was staked to a six-run lead after two innings, but couldn't make it through the fifth. Is it tough sometimes to pitch with a big early cushion?

"I don't think that's what it is, because I didn't really think about how many runs we had," Chen said. "I just tried to focus on my part of getting the hitters out, but the double play I should have gotten, I failed to get it and it really affected me out there. There was a miscue by me and I have no excuses, and hopefully we won't have that anymore in the future.

"I would say I was disappointed in myself because I had a miscue out there and in the fifth inning, my pitch count got high. That was the reason to get a pitching change. But fortunately we have a great team here, great lineup, great bullpen and they are fighting out there, battling out there, so we had a victory. Today I had a miscue out there, so I was trying to work on that and hopefully we don't have similar things in the future."

Chris Davis was lightly booed in his first trip to the plate, and his first at-bat since serving his 25-game suspension for using Adderall without an exemption. He went 0-for-3 and was hit by a pitch.

"I felt good," he said. "First couple at-bats I was pretty fired up. My adrenaline kind of got the better of me. I was overswinging a little bit. As the game progressed I settled down a little bit, started seeing some pitches and took some better swings and just had better takes. Definitely a little rusty, but it felt good to be back in there."

Davis came up after the first four batters collected hits, and he was retired on a check-swing roller to third.

"I was a little fired up," he said. "I think you try to calm yourself down as much as you can first at-bat of the season. I almost got away with one, but I was kind of overswinging early, swinging at some balls that were good pitches, but not pitches that I could do a lot with. Settled down throughout the game and it was good to see some more pitches and get some more at-bats under my belt."

Orioles fans cheered Davis and everything orange and black again tonight, taking over The Trop by the ninth inning. Same as last night.

"I feel like we travel pretty well, especially the last few years having a winning ballclub," Davis said. "I feel like we see a lot of O's fans in the stands and it was good to get a warm reception from our fans. It's something that maybe goes a little unnoticed sometimes, the fact that your fans are on the road with you, but I was just glad to get back in there and get into a rhythm."

This was a typical Tropicana Field game, where no lead is safe.

"Yeah, there's no quit in these guys and there's a lot of similarities in our teams," he said. "Those guys battle till the end and I was proud of the way our bullpen hung in there. Gaus came in and was huge for us and it was good to get out to a big lead early, but you've got to put teams away, especially in our division. No lead is safe, but we did a good job hanging in there and getting a win."

Steve Pearce homered for the second time in two games. The Lakeland, Fla., native continues to mash at The Trop.

"Pearce can play," Davis said. "I think the biggest thing for him was just getting an opportunity. Sometimes that's all it takes. But I was glad to see him start off where he left off last year. He's a guy who works really hard and he's easy to root for, so I'm happy for him and hopefully he can keep it going."

Travis Snider has reached base in seven of eight plate appearances, a nice element to add to this offense.

"Absolutely," Davis said. "With Snider, you look at him and obviously he's got power. He's a guy who can do some damage. But really the at-bats that he's had have been impressive. Seeing pitches, laying off some good pitches and working the walks, and that's huge when you're at the top of the order."

In his last 11 games at The Trop, Pearce is batting .400/.533/.914 (14-for-35) with five home runs and nine RBIs. He's got eight career homers against the Rays, twice as many against any opponent.

"It's definitely satisfying, but it's only two games," Pearce said. "You've got to keep it going. And the most important thing is right now is we're winning some ballgames.

"We struck early. We put some runs on the board. I'm glad we did that because we came to a halt and they made a great comeback and it's just another typical Os-Rays game."

Asked whether it was a tough game, manager Buck Showalter replied, "Not tough at all when you win. Darren and Zach did the job they've been doing for us for a long time. Kevin got some outs. He made one pitch they barreled up on, but he got some big outs for us, too. We had some changes to add on, but quality pitching, especially relief pitching, can kind of take away from some of the anxiety of games like that.

"You know, at 6-0 nobody thinks the game is over by any chance. We know them. They're going to play hard and keep grinding to it and hats off to them. We were fortunate."

Britton threw 23 pitches while working for the second consecutive night and probably won't be available on Wednesday. He's been dominant since reporting to Sarasota.

"Zach's been good," Showalter said. "He's such a perfectionist, too. I guarantee I'll walk in there now and he's watching tape or something.

"You always worry a little bit when guys, especially a closer, has as good a spring as Zach's had, but he's carried it right over. Fortunately, with Wei-Yin, I've seen him two or three times with some leads like that early and he just doesn't seem to stay in attack mode. We let them back in it.

"If it was later in the season, I wouldn't have let (Chen) go as far as he did. I wanted to get him to 90 (pitches) if I could. He had a lot of opportunities to get the win tonight and he didn't take advantage of them.

"Just got out of attack mode. Never really had a consistent off-speed pitch tonight. But he didn't get the loss and they didn't score more runs than we did while he was in the game. He did some good things, too."