BALTIMORE _ Right-hander Kevin Gausman was looking for a turnaround performance on Wednesday night, and he almost got it.
Gausman was overpowering for the first few innings of the Orioles' 5-1 loss to the Cleveland Indians, but a four-batter lapse in the fifth was all it would take to spoil an otherwise solid effort and send him to his seventh loss in 10 decisions.
Still, it was a big improvement over three previous starts this month in which he allowed 16 earned runs over 15 2/3 innings.
Curiously, he handled the dangerous heart of the Indians batting order just fine, but was undone in that inning by back-to-back hits at the bottom of the lineup and a two-run home run by leadoff hitter Francisco Lindor.
Gausman left after getting two outs in the sixth inning, having given up three runs on six hits while striking out a season-high nine batters, but he had no margin for error against Indians starter Carlos Carrasco.
The Cleveland right-hander struck out 10 Orioles and allowed just seven hits over six-plus innings to record his eighth victory of the year. It was the 11th time in his major league career that he struck out 10 or more hitters in a game.
Three of those hits came with no one out in the seventh inning, posing the biggest threat the Orioles would mount against Carrasco, who turned the game over at that point to former Orioles setup man Andrew Miller.
Miller got pinch hitter Joey Rickard to ground into a force at the plate before striking out Caleb Joseph and Ruben Tejada to get out of the inning without giving up a run.
The Indians would add to their lead in the ninth on RBI singles by Lindor and Jason Kipnis, which would add an extra dimension to an already disappointing evening. Kipnis' hit accounted for the fifth run of the game, extending the Orioles' string of games giving up at least five run to 18 _ just two games short of the dubious major league record held by the 1924 Philadephia Phillies.
The Orioles ended the shutout bid with one out in the bottom of the ninth when Trey Mancini singled and Jonathan Schoop drove him home with a double to right-center.
Though Carrasco was dominant, Mancini found a way to get a couple of hits off him, beating out a high infield chopper for the Orioles' first hit in the second inning and looped a soft single to right field in the seventh.
He also singled in the ninth off reliever Dan Otero. The 3-for-4 performance raised his batting average to .314.
The start of the game was delayed for 44 minutes. It was the second time in the series that the game started late. Monday's game was delayed 29 minutes.
