(SportsNetwork.com) - The Baltimore Orioles are trying to pull themselves out of the AL East basement and hope a handful of home games will do the trick.
The Orioles are back in Camden Yards for the first time since the riots and will resume a three-game set Tuesday versus the division-rival Toronto Blue Jays.
Baltimore kicked off a nine-game stay in the 21201 zip code with Monday's 5-2 victory, as Manny Machado led off the bottom of the first inning with a home run and Chris Davis clubbed a two-run shot two outs later. Adam Jones belted a solo home run in the seventh inning, helping the Orioles to their second win over the past seven games.
Ubaldo Jimenez took advantage of the early run support and limited the Blue Jays to two runs in seven innings with nines strikeouts and two walks.
"He was really good," Orioles manager Buck Showalter said. "He had a lot of counts in his favor, a lot of strike ones. ... If he's doing that, he's got a chance to have a pretty good outing."
Darren O'Day struck out two batters in the eighth and Zach Britton worked around two hits in the ninth and struck out two for his seventh save.
The attendance at Camden Yards was 20,468. The previous game there was April 29 against the Chicago White Sox in what was the first Major League Baseball game played in front of no fans because of unrest in the city.
Orioles second baseman Ryan Flaherty left the game in the third inning with an apparent groin injury. Steve Pearce moved from left field to second base and David Lough entered the game to play left. Flaherty was activated from the 15- day disabled list on Friday after recovering from a right groin strain.
Flaherty will undergo an MRI.
"As I was going over for the ball, I felt it grab again," Flaherty said. "It's not pain or anything like that. It's just something that I haven't dealt with before, and it just feels like a grabbing sensation sometimes."
Chris Tillman will try to keep the momentum going when he takes the ball for Baltimore Tuesday and is 2-4 with a 6.25 earned run average in six starts. He has lost his last three trips to the mound, including a 4-3 loss at Yankee Stadium on Thursday. He allowed four runs and 10 hits in 5 2/3 innings.
Tillman has lost both of his starts against the Blue Jays this season and sports a 4-8 record with a 5.12 ERA in 16 career starts in this series.
Toronto is winless in its last two games after winning three straight and five of seven. In Monday's series opener, Marco Estrada couldn't work himself out of an early hole and suffered the loss for allowing three runs in five innings.
Ezequiel Carrera knocked in two runs and was one of three players with two hits, joining Chris Colabello and Kevin Pillar, who scored twice.
The Blue Jays failed in their attempt to slow down Jimenez.
"That's his third start against us," Jays manager John Gibbons said. "He's living on the corners with a lot of movement and just pounding strikes. He was great, he was great again tonight."
Toronto slugger Jose Bautista was held out of the starting lineup Monday and appeared as a pinch-hitter in the ninth inning. He grounded out to end the game and is dealing with discomfort in his strained right shoulder. It is unknown when Bautista will get back to his usual spot in right field.
"It's hard to say with a number of days, it's impossible to predict," Bautista said. "Sometimes I wake up and I can't brush my hair, sometimes I wake up and it feels OK, obviously not good enough to throw but ... it changes from day to day. I can't tell you why, I just can't throw right now."
Mark Buehrle would enjoy having Bautista back in the lineup and will take the mound Tuesday for the Blue Jays. Buehrle is 4-2 with a 6.00 earned run average in six starts and ended a personal two-game slide with last Wednesday's 5-1 win over the New York Yankees. The Yankees give the left-hander trouble, but Buehrle fired back with five innings of one-run ball.
Buehrle is 2-0 against the Orioles this season and 10-10 with a 3.58 ERA in 26 career games (24 starts) in this series.
Baltimore is only 2-5 against Toronto this season.
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