MINNEAPOLIS _ The Orioles now approach the All-Star break with a sense of desperation, their final road trip of the first half already having become a reel of losing on repeat.
On Saturday afternoon, the Orioles slowed their free-fall, beating the Minnesota Twins, 5-1, at Target Field after losing their first five games of this seven-game road trip.
The Orioles (41-46) ended their five-game losing streak by finally getting a decent starting pitching performance as struggling left-hander Wade Miley (4-7) was one out shy of a quality start, allowing one run over 52/3 innings in his final outing before the break.
After allowing 6.6 runs per game over the first five games of this road trip, the Orioles gave up just one run.
It allowed their bats to get going, and All-Star Jonathan Schoop _ making his first career start at shortstop _ put the Orioles up early with a mammoth two-run homer off Twins left-hander Adalberto Mejia. The blast that went an estimated 462 feet and landed in the second deck of Target Field's left-field stands.
Mark Trumbo also drove in two runs, one coming on a solo homer off left-hander Buddy Boshers in the eighth. It was Trumbo's 14th homer of the season and his fourth in his past nine games.
Joey Rickard and Manny Machado each had two hits and combined for back-to-back doubles that scored a run in the sixth.
Miley, who had an 11.69 ERA over his previous six starts and was nearly bumped from the rotation heading into the break, allowed just one run, in the third inning on Miguel Sano's 21st homer of the season.
The Orioles left-hander definitely made himself work. He allowed at least two base runners in four of his six innings, including three times after retiring the first two batters of the inning. Miley overcame 11 base runners by working ahead in the count, using his curveball to get strike one.
Pitching for a third consecutive day, right-hander Darren O'Day escaped a sixth-inning jam.
O'Day entered after Miley had allowed back-to-back two-out hits, Byron Buxton's infield single to deep shortstop and Jason Castro's single to left against a pull shift.
Right away, O'Day fell behind Brian Dozier 3-0 and then hit him on the fourth pitch, loading the bases for third baseman Eduardo Escobar.
O'Day escaped the threat, striking out Escobar on six pitches, ending the at-bat with Escobar swinging through a tailing slider.
The Orioles bullpen hasn't been given many late-inning leads of late, and with closer Zach Britton unavailable after a 22-pitch eighth inning Friday night in his second outing back from the disabled list, right-handers O'Day, Mychal Givens and Brad Brach combined for 31/3 scoreless innings.
In pitching two scoreless innings, Givens retired six of the seven batters he faced, but was challenged by Twins prospect Zack Granite, making his first major league plate appearance as a pinch hitter in the eighth.
Granite worked an 11-pitch at-bat after Givens got ahead of him 0-2, fouling off five pitches before flying out to left field.
Brach struck out the side in a 16-pitch perfect ninth inning in a non-save situation, ending the game by blowing a 96-mph fastball by Sano.
