BALTIMORE _ The Orioles came into their three-game series against the high-flying Houston Astros with a little bit of momentum after sweeping a four-game series against the Texas Rangers. But manager Buck Showalter has a saying about that.
He tends to dismiss the concept with the baseball truism that "momentum is only as good as the next day's starting pitcher."
On Friday night, that was doubly true in the Orioles' 8-7 loss before an announced 25,784 at Camden Yards.
Right-hander Ubaldo Jimenez (4-6) is too often the antidote for momentum and that was the case from the get-go. He struck out two of the first three batters he faced, but _ as so often happens _ the third out was elusive and the Astros scored three runs in the first inning. They added two more in the second inning and the Orioles' brief era of good feelings was all but over.
The Orioles (46-50) rallied to within one after falling behind, 8-1, but had their winning streak end at four.
Houston second baseman Jose Altuve sneaked a walk in between those first two strikeouts and stole second before Carlos Beltran gave his team the lead with a sharp single to right field. Jimenez quickly served up a two-run homer to Yuli Gurriel and Astros pitcher Mike Fiers took the mound with a nice early cushion.
It would get cushier in the second inning when Alex Bregman led off with a single and No. 9 hitter Colin Moran brought him home with a triple, then scored on a groundout to make it a five-run game before the Orioles came to bat for the second time. Moran would also homer in the eighth inning off Orioles reliever Richard Bleier.
The only redeeming thing about Jimenez's outing was that he still got into the sixth inning. He left after giving up a solo home run to catcher Brian McCann and _ as difficult as this might sound _ still managed to raise his ERA from 7.01 to 7.19.
Fiers, meanwhile, was having no trouble with an Orioles offense that had come alive against the struggling Rangers. He got into a couple of jams, but the only run he gave up over seven innings came on a bloop RBI single by Jonathan Schoop with two outs in the third inning.
The Orioles came back with one in the eighth on a single by Mark Trumbo, and five runs in the ninth on Adam Jones' two-run double and Schoop's three-run homer. But Trumbo struck out to end the game.
