Pardon the “Dumb and Dumber” reference, but that hilarious line keeps popping into my head as people ask me if there really is still hope for the Orioles this season.
The odds against a return to the postseason aren’t “like one out of a million,” as the hapless Lloyd is told when he asks about the chances of him getting a date with the dismissive Mary in that very funny movie, but I guess it isn’t entirely out of the question.
So much would have to go right over the next couple of months just to put the O’s in a position to climb back into the playoff race that it is almost inconceivable, especially in the aftermath of Tuesday night’s deflating come-from-ahead loss to a St. Louis Cardinals team that did just about everything it could to help them extend their three-game winning streak.
Until the seventh inning, it was the Cardinals who looked like the team that couldn’t shoot straight and the O’s were the guys who had taken advantage of a dramatic home run by red-hot Ryan O’Hearn to carry a lead into high-leverage territory. But the bullpen faltered and they fell back to 16 games under .500.
That didn’t substantially change the full-season dynamic, which is borderline hopeless, but it certainly made it that much harder for fans to dream that the Orioles have turned a competitive corner and this season is not just about getting a cool straw hat on Father’s Day next month.
The club finally has made some progress pulling together a passable starting rotation while it hopefully awaits the return of Grayson Rodriguez, Kyle Bradish and Tyler Wells in the second half. There’s also the possibility that Colton Cowser and Jordan Westberg will give the offense a spark when they return from the injured list in the next few weeks.
The long-term outlook might look pretty good if it wasn’t for that math thing. (That was a “Doc Hollywood” reference, if you’re keeping score at home.) The Orioles are currently on pace to lose more than 100 games, so the only way to get out of this hole is stay in the present and ignore the musical advice to not stop thinking about tomorrow.
Hall of Fame manager Tommy Lasorda, during the few times his Los Angeles Dodgers teams found themselves in desperate straits, would call a team meeting and ask his players to set realistic short-term goals to improve their position for that inevitable point in the season when they would get on an extended hot streak.
“Just gain one game a week,’’ he would tell them, which makes more sense than you might think but is much easier said than done.
That logic, when applied to the Orioles this season, is not that they could climb all the way back into playoff contention by gaining one game a week on the final American League playoff berth, but that even the worst of teams (of which they are not) have a couple of five-game winning streaks over the course of the season.
In other words, their only hope – and it is admittedly a faint one – is to continue playing better and getting healthier and hoping that a few of the better-situated Wild Card wannabes falter during the dog days of August and early September.
That’s a long, long shot to be sure, but – I guess – I’m saying there’s a chance.