BALTIMORE — The disappointment of Monday’s loss aside, the Orioles had an excellent long weekend at Tropicana Field that ended with a share of the lead for the third wild-card spot in the American League.
Winning three out of four from the AL’s best team speaks for itself and reflects a club with a chance as reasonable as anyone’s with 37 games remaining. But as we try to prop up the perception of this AL wild-card race of the “undead” — are seven sub-.500 teams tripping over themselves for the final spot really alive or merely zombie contenders? — as much as we’d like, having meaningful belief in a team that hasn’t had a winning record since Tax Day isn’t easy.
The truth is the Orioles have been in a similar spot multiple times this season and haven’t been able to sustain success for more than a week or two before falling back into their bubble of mediocrity.
A 10-4 stretch from late May through early June breathed life into a season that was teetering by Memorial Day weekend. But the Orioles won just one of their next eight series after that.
They surprisingly won a series at Dodger Stadium in late June before losing three consecutive three-game sets.
Even after the season-best seven-game winning streak wrapped around the All-Star break, the Orioles lost three of the next four series, which prompted president of baseball operations Mike Elias to sell at the trade deadline. To its credit, Craig Albernaz’s club has gone a respectable 7-6 since the trades of Adley Rutschman, Tyler Wells, and Taylor Ward rather than players mailing it in and feeling sorry for themselves down the stretch. Frustrating as they are to watch, the Orioles have shown some fight and mostly avoided prolonged stretches of poor play with their season-worst losing streak being just five.
Still, Monday marked the fifth time since early June that the Orioles have had a chance to move to one game under .500. They’ve lost all five and fallen back at least a little further from that benchmark every other time.
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In other words, it’s been a step or two forward followed by two or three steps back all season, which produces a team hovering between two and nine games under .500 for close to four months now. Not awful, but hardly good.
Will this time be any different?
It starts with turning the page quickly from Monday’s missed opportunity to win a series against the New York Yankees at Camden Yards.
“You don’t have time to kind of bask in your victory. You have to move on quickly and worry about your next opponent,” Albernaz said before Tuesday’s series opener. “With our schedule, it doesn’t get any easier, and rightfully so. It’s the big leagues, and especially the AL East. The Yankees are a really tough opponent.
“Our guys know the brand of baseball they’re capable of playing. They know that they have a variety of different ways to compete with other teams. For our guys, it’s knowing that, acknowledging that, and just going out and doing it.”
Nobody’s suggesting a 1974-like finish is required amidst such league-wide mediocrity, but expecting the rest of these wild-card contenders to continue losing to this degree probably isn’t the optimal strategy. Then again, going a pedestrian 5-5 over the road trip was enough to put the Orioles in this position anyway.
8Fresh off being named AL Player of the Week, can Pete Alonso continue carrying an offense that’s come alive over the last week?
Is the recent surge at the plate from Gunnar Henderson real or just the latest tease?
Being mindful of the workloads of multiple starters — Kyle Bradish and Brandon Young specifically — and miscast roles in the bullpen, how will the pitching hold up down the stretch?
What should we expect from the soon-to-be-returning Samuel Basallo after a monthlong absence with a shoulder injury? How about Blaze Alexander, Ryan Helsley, or possibly even Felix Bautista in the coming weeks?
Will the defense, baserunning, and fundamentals be decent enough for this team not to beat itself as the games become more critical?
Envisioning the Orioles playing well enough to sneak into October is hardly impossible when considering the current climate of the AL, but that still forces one to lean harder on prior expectations than how they’ve actually played. Even an 83-79 record would require a 22-15 finish, which is markedly better than they’ve played in all but one month — a 15-8 July — all season.
If you’re skeptical, you’re certainly not alone.
Sustaining the vibes of the series victory over Tampa Bay with a winning homestand against the AL’s two best teams would be a huge step in the right direction.
