Orioles win battle of birds, prove they’re capable of soaring in AL East

12:32 AM ET

BALTIMORE — Don’t dismiss the hot start just yet.

Thanks to a 3-2 victory Thursday night over the Toronto Blue Jays, the Baltimore Orioles won their first series against the defending American League East champs. In doing so, they showed that maybe, just maybe, they’ve got a little more staying power than everyone thought.

After shocking the baseball world by winning their first seven games of the season, the O’s — who were projected by many to finish at or near the bottom of the division — sputtered, dropping four of their next five, including the series opener against Toronto.

Tuesday’s loss to the Jays cut Baltimore’s division lead to a game and a half. With L’s in the final two matchups of the series, the Birds would’ve been looking up at Toronto in the standings, and probably would’ve had the majority of baseball world shaking its collective head and saying, “Told ya so.”

Rookie Joey Rickard notched three hits for the second straight game and scored the winning run Thursday for the Orioles. Evan Habeeb/USA TODAY Sports

But that’s not what happened.

Instead, Buck Showalter’s gang tallied a pair of W’s to go up by a surprising 3½ games …

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