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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Thursday, August 30, 2012
The Baltimore Orioles have no business being in a playoff race. A team that is near the bottom of the American League in batting and pitching, the Orioles are in a position to win one of the league’s two wild-card spots and only three games behind the first-place Yankees in their division. With 10 more wins, they will clinch the team’s first winning record since 1997.
The Orioles (72-58) will visit Yankee Stadium for a three-game series starting Friday and play the Yankees 7 times in 10 days, giving them a chance to take over the division lead, something that seemed impossible just a few weeks ago.
How have the Orioles done it? Smoke, mirrors, a strong bullpen and a great deal of luck.
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1. charityslave is thinking about baseball Posted: August 30, 2012 at 09:32 PM (#4223140)And 12-2 in extras.
Hope is not a strategy.
Fear is not an option.
-- James Cameron
Don't think it couldn't happen, not when the Yanks are missing A-Rod, Teixeira, Pettitte and Mo (and Nova, too), and when their 4th and 5th starters are a total crapshoot. They've got more depth to cover those MIAs than most teams, but right now they're trotting out a bunch of players who would never have seen a Yankee roster just three years ago. If they don't have those first three players at full strength for the postseason, they've got little or no shot of going anywhere.
Look, CC hasn't been that good lately, but I wouldn't call him a crap shoot.
Oh, I suppose you mean Phelps. But you are mistaken, Phelps is a G. But you are correct that the Yanks could blow their lead with the way they have been playing. They can't hit, they especially can't hit lefties, they have several completely overmatched defenders, and a paper thin bullpen.
they dumped most of the pitchers who compiled that negative run differential for guys who have been markedly better.
Great point. The basic Pythag analysis misses that. Getting rid of Tommy Hunter alone is worth a win or so.
I'm glad to see Markakis is having a good year again. It's been a while since he hit with this much pop.
There are plenty of reasons to think the Orioles are more dangerous than their pythag indicates - the foremost being that teams who are outperforming their pythag at this point generally are better than their pythag.
There was an article a couple days ago that dug up all of the teams over the last 10 years who were at least 5 games over their pythag at the end of August. Those 30 teams had a .550 record as a whole, and a .500 pythag.
In September those teams had a .550 record on average, and something like 70-80% had a better September record than their Apr-Aug pythag.
The 2007 DBacks (who are mentioned in this article to sort of dismiss the Orioles chances) are probably the best comp.
2007 Dbacks
Aug 24 Record: 72-57
Aug 24 Run Diff: -35
Final Record: 90-72
2012 Orioles
Aug 30 Record: 72-58
Aug 30 Run diff: -44
Final record: ?
Discussing orioles baseball in a positive way this late in the season is a weird sensation.
Sigh.
But if in two or three weeks from now they still look to have a good shot to make the playoffs, I think you'll see the crowds start to grow. OPACY is still easily one of the best environments to go see a ballgame.
Considering how bad they have been over the last 13-14 years, I don't think their attendance is all that terrible. Tampa, now THAT situation is truly terrible.
They'll definitely draw better for next weekend's series against the Yankees, but we'll see how many wear orange.
I also think there's no doubt that the Nationals being there and being good is also having an impact - I just don't think Baltimore has the market size anymore to consistently sell out mid-week games.
Last year is a bit muddy because they played the Yankees at the end of August but even the Monday game against the Yankees only drew 18,000 last year and they Tues, Wed, Thurs against TOR was 11k, 14, and 11k while games earlier in the month during the week were drawing slightly more than that.
I think that Brooks Robinson Statue Day is on the 29th, and that last home series against the Red Sox is going to draw big numbers as well. Maybe huge numbers depending on the standings.
I live in the city, work smack downtown, and I don't hear too much Oriole excitement(Course I know no one, not a single soul, who is up for the Grand Prix, not even on FB, which I suspect is due to years and years of being burnt by Angelos.
Plus football season is about to start. B-more has always been a football city first and there are pretty high hopes for the purple and black this year so most of the focus is on them.
I'll tell you why not! Because no one wins the AL East title but the Jays!
/time warp
True, I remember the Baltimore Stallions being a dominant team behind the running of Mike Pringle.
Unlike Derek Jeter, fans should be able to tell Cal apart from his statue.
As long as that rule includes a Dan Snyder exception, I can probably buy into it.
/time warp
I'll never forget that final weekend. They lost in extra innings on Friday, then next-day starter Harnisch stepped on a nail after the game. Johnson filled in admirably but they gave up three in the eighth to lose the season. Damn you Frank Wills!
They're up 2,599 per game over last year. Given how much Angelos alienated the fan base and how little was expected of the Orioles at the start of the season, that's pretty good, although I agree it will be telling if the fans don't turn out down the stretch if Baltimore remains in the playoff race.
Note that the Orioles have three games against the Rays on the road to close the season -- they could easily go to Tampa Bay a game behind the Rays for the second wildcard, which would set up a more or less exact replay of the end of 1989.
Except, as John Rambo liked to say, this time we win.
Too soon?
It's not like someone affiliated with the Yankees said it. If they want to have at it with Benjamin Hoffman that shouldn't be a problem though.
I saw an O's fan wearing an Albert Belle jersey two seasons ago.
I say it's Teagarden, Ford, and McLouth (Attorneys at Law).
Except maybe for Albert's attempt to start a player revolt to refuse to play the Cuba exhibition, starting little flame wars whenever he could, and then being all passive-aggressive about it when confronted. I'm not a big believer in the concept, but if there ever was a clubhouse cancer, Albert Belle was it. He was certainly a two-faced coward (see: Sosa, Sammy.)
Boy, I hope that some team that plays exciting baseball, takes the extra base, hits home runs, and wins close games represents the AL East in the playoffs. I'm not sure yet, but I think I saw a team very much like this today.
The Jays are too far back. Not even the Yankees can cough up a lead that big.
Seriously, if the O's took two of three, that would be so very fine. SO very fine.
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