ANAHEIM -- This three-city road trip on the West Coast promised to be a huge test for the first-place Orioles coming out of the All-Star break. And while they just hit halfway on Tuesday night, the O's are starting to gain some traction. Coming off of a series loss in Oakland, which included a tough walk-off defeat, Baltimore has done the near-impossible: beat the Angels at home. 
Backed by another stellar outing from the surging Miguel Gonzalez, the O's made a trio of sixth-inning runs stand up to hand the Halos their first consecutive losses since June 15 and 16. Baltimore's 4-2 victory on Tuesday night, which snapped the Angels' club record of 10 consecutive home series wins, keeps its four-game lead in the American League East intact and puts the O's at 3-2 on the trip.Gonzalez, optioned to Triple-A to make a start during the break, went 7 2/3 innings and held an Angels lineup that's the top scoring team in the Majors in check until the end as he continued an impressive month of July. The 30-year-old righty allowed only Mike Trout's two-out homer as his last batter of the game, He scattered three hits and four walks to put his ERA at 1.90 in three starts this month. Even more impressive is that it comes on the heels of a June in which Gonzalez pitched to a 6.14 ERA -- the highest mark of any month in his career -- and never surpassed five innings in a single start.Gonzalez turned in his fourth quality start in as many tries against the Angels, the organization that originally drafted him.The Orioles broke through the scoreless tie in the sixth with a two-out double from J.J. Hardy, who laced a ball into right-center field to score a hustling Chris Davis from first base. Davis, who got down 0-2 on reliever Mike Morin, got things going with a two-out single against the shift.Jonathan Schoop, who singled in the second inning, increased the lead to three with a two-run homer on Morin's 89-mph fastball. Schoop drilled the 0-1 offering into the center-field rocks to mark his eighth homer of the season.Hardy doubled again to tack on another run in the eighth inning off reliever Fernando Salas, who gave up a leadoff two-bagger to Nelson Cruz.At just 80 pitches to start the seventh inning, Gonzalez issued a leadoff walk to Josh Hamilton but was able to pitch around it on a pair of flyouts and a dribbler from David Freese that Schoop charged to get the out. He wasn't as lucky in the eighth as a one-out walk to No. 9 batter Hank Conger came around to score on Trout's blast.Right-hander Tommy Hunter retired Albert Pujols to end the eighth inning with closer Zach Britton picking up the save.Brittany Ghiroli / MLB.com
Backed by another stellar outing from the surging Miguel Gonzalez, the O's made a trio of sixth-inning runs stand up to hand the Halos their first consecutive losses since June 15 and 16. Baltimore's 4-2 victory on Tuesday night, which snapped the Angels' club record of 10 consecutive home series wins, keeps its four-game lead in the American League East intact and puts the O's at 3-2 on the trip.Gonzalez, optioned to Triple-A to make a start during the break, went 7 2/3 innings and held an Angels lineup that's the top scoring team in the Majors in check until the end as he continued an impressive month of July. The 30-year-old righty allowed only Mike Trout's two-out homer as his last batter of the game, He scattered three hits and four walks to put his ERA at 1.90 in three starts this month. Even more impressive is that it comes on the heels of a June in which Gonzalez pitched to a 6.14 ERA -- the highest mark of any month in his career -- and never surpassed five innings in a single start.Gonzalez turned in his fourth quality start in as many tries against the Angels, the organization that originally drafted him.The Orioles broke through the scoreless tie in the sixth with a two-out double from J.J. Hardy, who laced a ball into right-center field to score a hustling Chris Davis from first base. Davis, who got down 0-2 on reliever Mike Morin, got things going with a two-out single against the shift.Jonathan Schoop, who singled in the second inning, increased the lead to three with a two-run homer on Morin's 89-mph fastball. Schoop drilled the 0-1 offering into the center-field rocks to mark his eighth homer of the season.Hardy doubled again to tack on another run in the eighth inning off reliever Fernando Salas, who gave up a leadoff two-bagger to Nelson Cruz.At just 80 pitches to start the seventh inning, Gonzalez issued a leadoff walk to Josh Hamilton but was able to pitch around it on a pair of flyouts and a dribbler from David Freese that Schoop charged to get the out. He wasn't as lucky in the eighth as a one-out walk to No. 9 batter Hank Conger came around to score on Trout's blast.Right-hander Tommy Hunter retired Albert Pujols to end the eighth inning with closer Zach Britton picking up the save.Brittany Ghiroli / MLB.com
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