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Pearce powers Orioles past Rangers

Jul 1, 2014 - 4:18 AM Baltimore, MD (SportsNetwork.com) - Steve Pearce drove in four runs with two homers and Ubaldo Jimenez tossed a solid eight innings, leading the Baltimore Orioles to a 7-1 victory over the Texas Rangers in the opener of a four-game set on Monday.

Adam Jones and J.J. Hardy also homered and Caleb Joseph brought in a run with a sacrifice fly for the Orioles, who snapped a two-game skid.

Jimenez (3-8) gave up just one unearned run on four hits with one walk and seven strikeouts to earn his first win since May 8.

"He was solid," said Orioles manager Buck Showalter on Jimenez. "He commanded all of his pitches."

Leonys Martin scored the lone run for the Rangers offense, which mustered just four hits. Texas has now dropped 10 of its last 12 games.

Joe Saunders (0-5) was tagged with the loss after giving up all seven runs on nine hits across five innings.

"I think you have to give the Orioles hitters some credit," said Texas manager Ron Washington. "They hit everything. You have to give them credit."

The Orioles started the scoring early. Nick Markakis took a leadoff walk and Pearce crushed a 1-0 fastball into the right-field seats. Two batters later, Jones' solo shot to left made it a 3-0 game.

Hardy stroked his second homer of the season to lead off the second, giving the Orioles a 4-0 cushion.

In the fourth, Baltimore went up 6-0 after Pearce connected on a changeup for his second two-run blast of the game.

Texas got on the board in the fifth. Martin walked with one out, moved to third on Rougned Odor's two-out single to right and scored after Michael Choice reached on third baseman Chris Davis' throwing error.

The Orioles tacked on a run in the home half. Hardy singled and Jonathan Schoop doubled off the right-field wall with one out. Joseph's sac fly brought home Hardy for a 7-1 lead.

Game Notes

Frank Cashen died Monday at the age of 91. He was a member of the Orioles front office when they won the World Series in 1966 and '70 ... Pearce had his first multi-homer game ... Major League Baseball has upheld a five-game suspension to Baltimore Orioles third baseman Manny Machado for a bat tossing incident earlier this month. Machado started serving his suspension on Monday and is eligible to return Saturday against Boston ... Prior to the game, Baltimore selected the contract of Ramirez from Triple-A Norfolk and optioned pitcher Evan Meek to the Tides.