DETROIT — Personalities are not worth wins and losses, nor do they account for much in the statistical world. However you look at the game, there's a place for the two men at the heart of the Orioles' 11-3 win over the Detroit Tigers on Saturday night in your worldview.
Center fieler Adam Jones, who led off the game with a home run, and right-hander Ubaldo Jimenez, who pitched his fourth straight quality start by going seven innings and allowing two runs, both were heavily praised by manager Buck Showalter after the game for the daily presence that helped bring about those performances.
"The cream always comes to the top, especially this time of year," Showalter said of Jones, whose day included a 3-for-4 batting line, two RBIs and a spectacular running catch in center field in the third inning. "As long as I've had the honor of doing this, it doesn't sneak up on me, but it is a reminder that guys like Adam seem to find a way to show who they are at this time of year when you're in need. But Adam never changes. He's probably as consistent of a personality as you want to find, and I think that's why people like him. He doesn't have an off day."
Jones was central to a light-hearted Orioles clubhouse Saturday afternoon, one that couldn't take batting practice on the field because of rain but busied itself with college football and its new standard of chess to wash away Friday's 4-3, gut-punch loss in the series opener.
"We understand what's going on right now," Jones said. "Last night was a tough loss — a very tough loss. We battled back, but it wasn't like we just gave the game away. We fought and fought and fought, but we got beat. In baseball, there's always a next day, unless there's a last day. We knew where we were at. We knew where we stand, and we're a resilient team. We were going to come back and do what we need to do."
He did that, and thanks to another steady character — catcher Matt Wieters — the Orioles bludgeoned the Tigers to take the season series from them, an important distinction given they could end up using that to determine where a play-in or wild-card game is played between them.
"It is big to get wins," Wieters said, downplaying his two-homer performance. "It is nice to be able to hit homers and drive in runs, but if they don't come with wins at this point in the year, it doesn't really matter."
But the man who held that lead was Jimenez, the team's erratic but now-reliable starter who has given the Orioles a quality start in each of his four starts in the rotation since Chris Tillman went out with a shoulder injury.
He pitched his way out of the rotation on multiple times this year — and over the course of his three seasons with the Orioles — but no one seems to remember when he has gone as well as he is now.
"I told the players the other day in a meeting, there's not a day that goes by that something doesn't happen that I just swell up with pride about the way they go about their business," Showalter said. "They don't wallow around in self-pity. Their teammates are supportive of each other, and everybody is pulling for a guy like Ubaldo for the right reason. And he's been a good teammate and a good human being through thick and thin."
Added Jones: "I know it's Ubaldo's third year here — I know all the whispers that he can't do this, he hasn't done this, he hasn't fulfilled this. But right now, these last three or four starts that he's done, I think he's earned every dollar that we're paying him. He's doing a tremendous job, and the best thing about him is he's kept a level head the entire time, through trials and tribulations and through success. He's maintained a level head through it."