ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. _ Among the many things that must reveal themselves for the Orioles to return to the postseason shuffle is right-hander Kevin Gausman's return to his second-half self of last season.
And Gausman took a step forward in that direction in Monday night's series opener against the Tampa Bay Rays, pitching six scoreless innings in the Orioles' 5-0 win at Tropicana Field.
The Orioles (48-51) won for the sixth time in the past eight games and crept closer to getting back into the American League wild-card race as the non-waiver trade deadline looms Monday.
If the club is to have any hope of contending, Gausman will have to duplicate performances like Monday's, when he was able to locate and mix his pitches well against an aggressive Tampa Bay offense.
He's starting to turn the tide. Over his past two starts, Gausman has allowed just one run over 12 innings, posting a 0.75 ERA while putting together back-to-back quality starts for just the second time this season in 22 starts.
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Gausman has also held the Rays scoreless in two starts this season, pitching 13 shutout innings against Tampa Bay and striking out 17 while walking five. He threw seven scoreless innings July 2 at Camden Yards.
The 26-year-old bore down when he needed to, including stranding the bases loaded in the third inning after creating his own damage.
Gausman opened the inning by allowing a first-pitch single to Tim Beckham and then walked Mallex Smith after getting ahead of him 0-2. But Gausman then struck out Adeiny Hechavarria and Steven Souza Jr. before walking Corey Dickerson on four pitches and escaping the inning with a grounder to shortstop for a force play at second.
Six of Gausman's first eight outs came on strikeouts, including three in the second inning. Gausman used his breaking ball to get ahead early, but leaned on his fastball, especially up in the zone against Tampa Bay's free swingers.
His season rejuvenated by a recent move to the top of the batting order, Orioles center fielder Adam Jones homered for the fourth time in his last six games with a third-inning solo blast off left-hander Blake Snell.
Jones, who is 14-for-28 over that stretch and has driven in 11 runs, was feasting on fastballs from Snell. He took the first pitch of the game down the left-field line for a double, then was fed three straight off-speed pitches before Snell threw Jones a fastball that he hit into the left-field stands for his 19th homer of the season.
Since Jones moved to the leadoff spot in the Orioles' first game after the All-Star break, he is 17-for-47 over an 11-game stretch.
The Orioles chased Snell from the game in the eighth after back-to-back singles by Ruben Tejada and Joey Rickard, then scored three runs off newly acquired reliever Sergio Romo with station-to-station baseball.
Jones' single off Romo loaded the bases, and Manny Machado hit a two-run single up the middle to give the Orioles a 3-0 lead and was followed by Jonathan Schoop's sacrifice fly to left to score Jones.
