The team hasn’t been in the playoffs in consecutive seasons since 1996 and 1997.
It’s official. The Orioles will be playing in the postseason. The team sealed the deal on Tuesday night with the combination of its own win over the Yankees, 5-3, combined with the Twins losing to the Marlins in Miami, 4-1. They cannot pass the Orioles in the standings, no matter what, and that means the O’s are in the dance.
Still on hold is the Orioles clinching that they will be the top wild card seed in the American League. The magic number to clinch that is down to 2 after the Tuesday victory. That’s a combination of Orioles wins and Tigers losses. Detroit beat the Rays earlier on Tuesday. The O’s are still strongly favored to hold on, since they’ve got a four-game lead with five games left to play, but with the Tigers last series coming against the White Sox, plus how they’ve played lately, their running the table feels like more than a longshot possibility.
At times it hasn’t been pretty as the Orioles have stumbled along to reach this point through not just September, but August and July before it as well. The team has had its share of problems, especially with the offense as the absences of Jordan Westburg, Ryan Mountcastle, and Ramón Urías piled up. They’ve blown games they probably should have won.
These things have put the team on the verge of elimination from repeating the AL East title, though they’ve staved that off by winning on Tuesday. Any Orioles loss to the Yankees this week closes that out. The O’s have to run the table while the Yankees lose the rest of the way. It’s possible until it’s not.
Though it’s kind of disappointing to only reach this milestone at this point in the season, given how well they were playing through the end of May, it’s still a fun one. This is the first time since the 1996 and 1997 seasons that the Orioles have been in the postseason for consecutive years. The 2012, 2014, and 2016 O’s could never manage to do it two years in a row. The 1998-2011 Orioles couldn’t do it at all.
It’s worth a celebration to have made it. Clinching the home field in the wild card round will be worth another celebration. Then we can all just hold our breath and hope that the Orioles can take advantage of this opportunity and win a postseason game for the first time in a decade.