TORONTO - Koji Uehara threw two splitters to Adam Lind in the 11th inning.
The second one was too inviting to pass up.
Lind hammered that pitch for his 12th home run of the season and the Toronto Blue Jays ended a four-game losing streak by defeating the Baltimore Orioles 6-5 on Tuesday.
"There's nothing much to explain,: Lind said. "He hung, I think, a splitter and I hit it right on the sweet spot."
It was Lind's first walk-off homer of the season and the third of his career.
"It was just a splitter that was up in the zone," said Orioles catcher Matt Wieters, whose two-run homer in the eighth tied the game 5-5. "That's something where if it has his normal action it's probably a ground ball but he made a mistake and give Lind credit, he hit it."
Shawn Camp (1-1) pitched the top of the 11th to earn the win, while Uehara (1-1) lost despite dominating in a 1-2-3 10th inning.
The Blue Jays (33-34) are fourth in the American League East and moved 1 1/2 games ahead of the fifth-place Orioles (30-34) in the standings.
The win came as a relief for the Blue Jays, who were swept over the weekend by the first-place Boston Red Sox and outscored 35-6.
"The way we won tonight I thought was great," Lind said. "Any win that you get in the division is going to be big. In our world, this past weekend was a long time ago. I don't think anyone was even thinking about it."
The Blue Jays saw their 4-1 lead cut to one in the Orioles' two-run seventh. But Aaron Hill hit his second homer of the season in the seventh against former Blue Jay Jeremy Accardo to increase Toronto's lead to 5-3.
Wieters hit his sixth homer of the season after Vladimir Guerrero was walked by reliever Marc Rzepczynski in the eighth to tie the game. It cost Carlos Villanueva a chance at his fourth win in five starts since he moved from the bullpen to the starting rotation on May 23.
Villanueva allowed three runs and seven hits in six-plus innings.
"As my pitch count increases, I've been feeling stronger," Villanueva said. "I'm not getting tired. I wanted to go a little deeper tonight, our bullpen has been throwing quite a bit lately but we got the win."
He said he is not concerned about his role in the future.
"I haven't heard anything," he said. "In my mind I'm going start to start. I don't like to look ahead that far. I'll start focusing on my next start tomorrow. I've always been like that even when I've started in the past.
"I'm just a little more aggressive. I never saw myself as a starter I was just kind of learning as I went along, I have the same mentality starting or relieving. Obviously you have to pace yourself more starting."
After Villanueva gave up Luke Scott's second bunt single and a walk to Mark Reynolds to start the seventh, Jason Frasor took over to try protect a 4-1 lead.
It was Frasor's 440th appearance as Blue Jay pitcher, moving him past Dave Stieb into third place on the club's all-time list.
This appearance was one of Frasor's shakier ones. His wild pitch put the runners at second and third and Robert Andino hit a sacrifice fly. J.J. Hardy hit his second double of the game to cut the lead to 4-3. Frasor ended the inning on two groundouts.
Orioles starter Chris Jakubauskas allowed seven hits and four runs in 5 1/3 innings.
"I didn't have my best stuff tonight," he said. "It was kind of one those nights. I was kind of all over the place. I was falling behind pitching 1-0 2-0 to a lot of guys. You can't really do that."
Each team scored a run in the first inning. Hardy led off with a single and went to third on a single by Nick Markakis who was caught in a rundown between first and second before being tagged out.
The Blue Jays tied the game on a double by Lind that scored Jose Bautista who walked with two out and has reached base in 19 consecutive games.
The Blue Jays took a 2-1 lead in the third when Yunel Escobar who led off with a single scored on Bautista's fielder's choice grounder to third. It forced Corey Patterson, who had bunted for a single, at second and Bautista reached first when the throw to first was off target.
The Blue Jays scored a pair in the fourth after Hill led off with an infield hit. Jayson Nix was hit by a pitch with one out. Escobar scored a run with a single and Patterson scored the other with a groundout to first.
The Blue Jays loaded the bases with one out against Jim Johnson in the home eighth but J.P. Arencibia's grounder to third resulted in a force at home and Edwin Encarnacion hit a fly out to right.
Notes: The Blue Jays demoted right-hander Kyle Drabek to triple-A Las Vegas on Tuesday and called up right-hander Zach Stewart from double-A New Hampshire where he was 4-3 with a 4.39 earned-run average. ... Stewart, 24, will make his major-league debut on Thursday against Baltimore. Drabek, 23, is 4-5 with a 5.70 earned-run average in 14 starts. ...By pitching Stewart on Thursday it allows the Blue Jays to split left-handers Ricky Romero and Jo-Jo Reyes in the rotation with a right-hander. ...Orioles pitching coach Mark Connor resigned for what the club said were personal reasons and has been replaced by bullpen coach Rick Adair. Organizational hitting instructor and evaluator Terry Crowley will be interim bullpen coach. ...Romero (5-6, 3.18 ERA) starts Wednesday against Jake Arrieta (8-3, 4.48 ERA). ...Attendance at Rogers Centre was 15,592.
