Wrapping up an 8-3 win

BOSTON - The Orioles have won four of their last five games and are tied with the Red Sox for first place in the American League East following today's 8-3 victory.

The Orioles have won seven of their last eight at Fenway Park. They're 7-1 this season when scoring first and 7-0 when leading after seven innings.

In addition, the Orioles have homered in nine straight games, the longest streak in the majors. They matched their season high today with 15 hits and have 13 or more hits in the last two games.

Adam Jones has hit safely in nine straight games, going 20-for-35 (.571) with five home runs, 14 RBIs and 11 runs scored. He's 25-for-49 (.510) in his last 13 games at Fenway Park.

David Ortiz's last three ejections have come against the Orioles.

Let's start the postgame discussion with manager Buck Showalter:

On plate umpire leaving the game:
"He pulled somethng in his leg. I'm not sure. He was struggling."

On how he'd describe Jones' start:
"I wouldn't. The only thing I'd say is he likes marriage. I don't know. Adam's capable of it and he's being more selective. When he's getting a pitch, he's not missing it. If you go back through some of those pitches, they're not all strikes. Keep that in mind when someone's talking about a little too aggressive out of the zone. That's who he is."

On Jones not feeling more pressure with Nelson Cruz and Nick Markakis gone:
"Adam, whether those good players that were here last year that aren't here, are here or not, Adam welcomes the responsibility of being a guy that his teammates and his organization count on. I don't think that changes ever for him game to game. That's a real tribute to him. He wants to be there, and he expects the people around him to play the game right, too."

On Jimmy Paredes, who has five hits in two games:
"Jimmy, last year when we first brought him up, he started out real hot. We wanted to ride it a little bit. A lot of time when guys are 25, 26 years old, they start figuring out who you are and who you're not. He's in a great frame of mind. He's obviously in a place he's very comfortable. It means a lot to players when the player knows when people are on him. They like what they bring and they respect him. Jimmy plays the game like we like to have it played, so it's a good fit."

On Tommy Hunter retiring all six batters after replacing Miguel Gonzalez:
"I think we will know kind of where Tommy started last year and where he ended up. Hopefully, today is the start of that. Those were four big innings that he and Gaus (Kevin Gausman) pitched for us today. We're not completely back on our feet, but we're in better shape than we could have been."

On Gonzalez throwing 35 pitches in the first inning:
"We were about a hitter away from getting somebody up there. They had a good shot in there, and he made a really quality pitch to get out of it. And after that, he grinded his way through five innings. I could have left him out there to start one more, but he had 108 last time out on basically normal rest and I don't want to push the envelope on him this early in the year."

On whether he was tempted to use Rule 5 pick Jason Garcia:
"Yes, I was. I decided to let Gaus finish that game. Until we get to the point in the season where we know what we've got, this team is very hard to beat here or anywhere. We had the chance to beat them. We thought we could finish the game with Gaus. I was looking at (Triple-A) Norfolk seeing if we needed to do anything, but yeah, I was tempted. I was tempted every night."

On Gausman pitching from the stretch:
"Last two or three times out. Last year, he did it some when he was relieving. Just feels more comfortable doing it. Whatever Wally (Dave Wallace) and Dom (Chiti) and them want to do, I'm in on it."

Jones continues to shift the attention away from himself, preferring to talk about the team.

Asked whether this is his hottest start, he replied, "I don't know. You guys go up there and look at all the numbers. All I know is Miggy went out there after that first inning, came back and had four quality innings, and our bullpen had four shutdown innings. That's the story that needs to be written.

"I don't know why you guys continuously ask me the same thing, but I'll give you the same answer. When it's going good, try to do what you're doing. When it's going bad, try to figure out what you ain't doing good. I don't know. I'm just trying to get a good fastball to hit."

Is the game more fun now?

"I've always enjoyed playing baseball," Jones replied. "I can go 0-for-30, I'm still going to love what I do."

Not having Cruz and Markakis hasn't changed the way pitchers attack Jones.

"They're still going to pitch me the same way," he said. "I've just got to get a fastball and try to not miss it. They aren't going to pitch me different because of personnel. They're going to pitch me based off what they've seen.

"I'm just trying to switch up some things, lay off offspeed and sit on fastballs the entire time. If I get a hanging curveball or something, swing at it, but try to really hone in on not swinging at off-speed pitches early in the count to (not) get myself in a hole."

I asked Jones about Paredes' impact after two games.

"Yeah, where he been at?" Jones said, smiling. "He comes in raking, swinging the bat well. I told him, 'Be aggressive. You get a fastball, hit it.'"

Hunter had a little fun with the media, which approached his locker after a solid six-up, six-down outing.

Apparently, he feels like reporters have been placing too much emphasis on the bullpen allowing runs in the first 10 games. The unit has shut out the Red Sox in back-to-back days.

"Man, two straight games and we did what we were supposed to do. That's kind of awesome, it's fun," he said, grinning. "Two games in a row, so we'll hopefully keep that streak going and not go back to the other ... It was nine games in a row, I guess, or 10? Oh, 10 games. So, yeah, glad I could contribute and Gausman could contribute and we could play baseball. So much fun."

Hunter agreed that the struggles are magnified early in the season.

"I believe so," he said. "It's early. Baseball's hard. Baseball's not a very easy sport to play. It's not something somebody can jump into and do. Go through the ups and downs, the roller coasters that we go through on a daily basis. It's not easy. If it was, anybody could do it, and there's only 750 guys in the world who do it. I think Buck says that quite a bit. It's a tough job, and you've got to take the good with the bad sometimes and just know over the long-run stuff's going to even out. It's going to play out the way it should."

Hunter was at his finest today, not allowing a ball out of the infield and lowering his ERA to 9.53 in 5 2/3 innings.

"Yeah, it was two innings of no runs, so that's what you're supposed to do," he said. "That's your job, that's your job title. Go out, throw baseballs and put up zeros. Some guys come in here, and their job is to hit balls really far and really hard and score runs. Ours as a bullpen, ours as a pitching staff is to put up zeros, and for the most part we do that. You want to date back to history. The first 10 games didn't go the way we had planned, either. Hopefully the next 152 do."

Hunter has enjoyed watching Jones destroy baseballs through the first 12 games.

"He's good, man. He's hot," Hunter said after Jones raised his average to .457. "That's a roller coaster, so as long as you can stay on that wave, stay on that upward part of the roller coaster. I hope he does it all year. It's not going to happen. It's pretty obvious. But I don't think anybody's hit .400 since the guy (Ted Williams) who played here, right?

"It's just ride the wave as long as you can and once you catch one, just ride it until you get knocked off. You're going to get knocked off. It's fun to watch right now, though. Adam's a hell of a baseball player and he's playing very well, seeing the ball really big and he's a big part of the team. He's pretty much the face of the franchise I would assume, right?"

Gonzalez gutted out five innings after a 35-pitch first inning. What was happening to him in the opening frame?

"I don't even know, honestly," he said. "I think I was getting a feel for the ball. It's dry out there, it's cold, but I was able to minimize it, but obviously those three walks and the homer to Hanley (Ramirez) got me a little bit, but I settled down after that."

Gonzalez isn't a big fan of cold weather, and the game time temperature was 49 degrees.

"Mentally, you have to be strong no matter what," he said. "We know that in April it's going to be cold and you've got to grind it out, make pitches and try to be out there as fast as possible. I thought today we played a good ballgame.

Gonzalez was pulled off the field while warming up before the bottom of the fourth inning due to Emmel's leg injury and the need to move second base umpire John Tumpane behind the plate.

"Yeah that was kind of weird," Gonzalez said. "The third base umpire came up and told me that the guy at second base was going to go get dressed and so I was kind of concerned about that. I didn't know what was going on. He told me to go sit down and take my time.

"Usually you want to be in a routine. You want to go out there and make your eight pitches and get ready to go, but that happened. I tried not to think too much about it and I stayed focused and stayed within myself."