After beating the Yankees last night, the Orioles are still alive in the AL East and the WC1 magic number is 1.
Hello, friends.
The Orioles! You can take off that exclamation point if you’re still rattled over Matt Bowman’s attempt to finish off garbage time against the Yankees last night. I’m choosing to think that at this point it doesn’t matter all that much what a guy who won’t be on the postseason roster ends up doing. It was more tense than it needed to be or should have been, but the result was good in the end: The Orioles beat the Yankees, 9-7, on Wednesday night.
Check out Alex Church’s recap of the game for more of the lovely totals. It could have been an unambiguous feel-good win after the Orioles rained down nine runs on 17 hits, all without ever hitting a home run. It was still a win and that counts for something. Everyone who spent weeks hoping the team would be able to turn things around once Jordan Westburg, Ryan Mountcastle, and Ramón Urías were all back has to feel a bit better about things right now.
Wednesday’s victory guarantees that the Orioles cannot be passed in the wild card standings by the Royals. The only team left that can possibly take the top wild card spot away from the O’s is the Tigers. Detroit beat up on the Rays yesterday to keep their own WC1 hopes alive. The magic number for the Orioles to clinch WC1 is down to just 1. The next game that the Orioles win or the Tigers lose, and the Orioles clinch it.
In a quirk that involves the assorted tiebreaker scenarios at play, although the Royals are eliminated from passing the Orioles while the Tigers are not, it’s also the case that if the current standings hold to season’s end, the Orioles would play the Royals in Baltimore in the wild card round. Detroit and Kansas City are tied in the standings at 84-74, with the Royals holding the head-to-head tiebreaker edge over the Tigers.
By winning last night, the Orioles have kept their own extremely slim chances of winning the AL East alive. The tragic number there is down to 1 – one Orioles loss or Yankees win. That’s because the Yankees are up four with four games to play. They could have clinched on Tuesday night and they lost. They could have clinched on Wednesday night and they lost. The Yankees have also slipped to where they’re now just a half-game ahead of the Guardians for the #1 overall seed. They do hold the head-to-head over Cleveland, if it becomes relevant.
It’s a duel between past Cy Young winners as the Orioles try to grab an improbable sweep here on Thursday night. No getaway day action here. It’s a 7:05 start. Corbin Burnes is set to start for the O’s, with Gerrit Cole pitching for the Yankees. The stakes aren’t as high as they will be in another week when it’s the actual postseason, but these are still pretty respectable stakes here. The Yankees would surely rather clinch the division tonight than have this thing drag out and wonder if they’ll fall apart.
Around the blogO’sphere
Grayson Rodriguez to miss the rest of the season: ‘We just ran out of time’ (The Baltimore Sun)
The last of the injured Orioles who we were hoping would be back is not going to make it, Mike Elias confirmed yesterday. No setbacks, he said, just not enough time to get Rodriguez back into game form.
Sights and sounds from the Orioles postseason clinch (Orioles.com)
Yeah, it’s from two nights ago now, but it’s still fun, isn’t it? Especially since the Orioles won again last night and staved off the Yankees clinching the division themselves.
For the Orioles, clinching a playoff spot was a ‘stepping stone’ worth celebrating (The Baltimore Banner)
As one of the veterans said last year (I think it was Kyle Gibson but it could have been Adam Frazier), when you get a chance to pop some bottles, you should do it.
For the Orioles, a hard-earned playoff berth provides an opportunity for a ‘fresh start’ (The Athletic)
A national press take on what it means for the Orioles to have clinched.
Basallo’s big accomplishment not involving prospect rankings (Steve Melewski)
Samuel Basallo took advantage of the Orioles offering high school education with part of their new international effort, and he recently completed the work to graduate. Congratulations to him.
Birthdays and Orioles anniversaries
Today in 1971, Jim Palmer was the winning pitcher for the 20th time in the season, going the distance in a three-hit shutout of the then-Indians. Dave McNally, Mike Cuellar, and Pat Dobson had already recorded their 20th wins, making the Orioles the first team since the 1920 White Sox to accomplish this feat. No team has done so since, and under prevailing trends of usage, no team is likely to ever do it again.
In 1978, Mike Flanagan took a no-hitter until two outs in the ninth inning before giving up three straight hits. Don Stanhouse completed the save in a 3-1 win.
There are a pair of former Orioles who were born on this day. They are: 1988 reliever Doug Sisk, and 1975-76 catcher Dave Duncan. Today is Duncan’s 79th birthday, so an extra happy birthday to him.
Is today your birthday? Happy birthday to you! Your birthday buddies for today include: gardener Johnny Appleseed (1774), physiologist Ivan Pavlov (1849), author T.S. Eliot (1888), composer George Gershwin (1898), actress Olivia Newton-John (1948), and tennis legend Serena Williams (1981).
On this day in history…
In 1777, the British occupied Philadelphia.
In 1905, Albert Einstein introduced his theory of relativity to the world in one of his “Annus Mirabilis” papers.
In 1918, the Allied armies launched the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. With 1.2 million personnel involved, this month-and-a-half campaign that lasted until the German surrender was the largest campaign of all of World War I.
In 1983, a Soviet computer reported an incoming nuclear missile. The officer on duty, Stanislav Petrov, took the risk of deciding it to be in error rather than ordering a “retaliatory” strike.
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And that’s the way it is in Birdland on September 26. Have a safe Thursday. Go O’s!