The Orioles’ historic streak of not being swept in a series was once a remarkable accomplishment.
It started days before the arrival of Adley Rutschman in 2022 and accentuated Baltimore’s rise from being baseball’s laughingstock for four years to becoming the American League’s best team in the 2023 regular season. Playing 91 straight series without being swept from mid-May of 2022 through the end of last September was an incredible team feat.
Truly.
But I’m honestly glad it’s now “officially” over at 106 series because — whether you want to admit it or not — the streak really ended last October when Texas made short work of the Orioles in the AL Division Series. Yes, I’m well aware of the difference between the regular season and postseason in the record book, but we all watched the disappointing ALDS sweep that ended a magical year.
Any regular-season accomplishment that requires us to ignore what happens in October — when legacies are truly defined — to continue propping it up probably isn’t worth celebrating any longer. Imagine if Joe DiMaggio’s legendary 56-game hitting streak stretched over two seasons and included a World Series flop in the midst of it. Such a regular-season feat just wouldn’t be held with the same reverence, and New Yorkers would probably be the first in line to remind everyone.
The regular season never trumps October, especially when we’re talking about a team accomplishment.
Continuing the sweepless streak hype over the first eight weeks of 2024 always felt disingenuous, especially when there’s so much else to like about the the state of the Orioles aside from this forgettable three-game sweep to St. Louis. To be fair, you never got the sense that it mattered to the team itself beyond simply wanting to go out and win on a nightly basis.
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“I don’t hear our guys talking about it at all,” manager Brandon Hyde said last week. “It just shows you, for me, that they come to the park ready to win. They come to the park to win on a nightly basis. But it wasn’t like one of those things the other day where I read that the streak didn’t get snapped. We didn’t come to the park thinking we needed to win today [and] it was must-win because of the streak or anything.
“We’ve been playing really good baseball for the last couple years.”
That sentiment doesn’t change after three straight losses to the Cardinals, but the Orioles need to regroup quickly with the way the Yankees have been playing since Baltimore took three out of four from New York at Oriole Park at Camden Yards three weeks ago.
Despite their recent struggles at the plate and Wednesday’s sloppy play, the Orioles have two years of evidence to suggest they’ll get back on track much sooner than later.
That’s far more meaningful than any streak coming to an end.
Means ailing again
The actual bad news coming out of Wednesday’s 5-4 loss is starter John Means once again dealing with elbow discomfort after only his fourth start of the season.
8The 31-year-old’s fastball velocity was down over three scoreless frames, and Hyde confirmed to reporters in St. Louis that Means was going to leave the game even before the rain delay in the fourth inning. Nearly 25 months removed from Tommy John surgery in late April of 2022, Means will undergo testing to see what’s going on with his surgically-repaired left elbow.
Means has made just eight major league starts going back to his much-awaited return last September when it looked like he had pitched his way into the postseason rotation with an impressive 2.66 ERA over four starts. However, he felt elbow soreness after pitching in a simulated game days before the start of the ALDS, which prompted the organization to shut him down well into the offseason and Means to get a late start in spring training and begin 2024 on the injured list.
Despite an unimpressive statistical rehab assignment last month, the 2019 All-Star selection posted a 3.06 ERA over his first three starts this month, twice completing six or more innings.
