"The Detroit Tigers have had a difficult time cashing in on scoring opportunities in recent days.

They had no such trouble Saturday night. At least not during the sixth inning.

The Tigers scored five runs on six consecutive two-out hits in the sixth inning Saturday night to rally for a 6-5 win against the Baltimore Orioles.

The Tigers have won by one run in each of their past eight victories, which is a franchise record, according to STATS LLC. The 1944 Tigers had a streak of seven such victories during July of that season.

"We play hard," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. "I'll say that. We play nine innings. That's been the theme ever since I've been here. I've really tried to emphasize that. You've got to play nine hard innings, and we talked about that on the bench tonight early in the game when we got behind. 'Play it out hard. See what happens.' "

The Tigers said they never lost confidence even after falling behind 5-0 early in the second inning.

"That's why you've got nine innings," said Ryan Raburn, who knocked in a pair of runs to give the Tigers the lead for good. "You've just got to keep battling. Sooner or later, hopefully, it comes through.

With the victory, the Tigers retained their three-game lead on the Cleveland Indians, who earned a 3-1 win against Minnesota.

The Tigers averaged more than 4.5 runs per game through their first 106 games. But in their 12 most recent games before Saturday night, they had averaged just 3.5 runs. Their struggle to score runs partially explains why all their wins have been by one run and why they have suffered a pair of one-run losses during that stretch.

"We have to do a better job of taking advantage of some scoring opportunities," Leyland said before the game. "We've let too many of them get away. If we don't start doing better it's going to bite us."

The lack of offense looked as if it might bite the Tigers against the Orioles, the worst team in the American League. The Tigers had two hits off Orioles starter Jeremy Guthrie through the first 5 2/3 innings and trailed 5-1 at that point."