SEATTLE — If the Orioles are going to do the impossible, they’re off to a good start.
Nobody in the majors has a longer winning streak than Baltimore, which swept the Seattle Mariners this week to extend its current run to six straight. The Orioles (25-36), who bottomed out at 18 games under .500 two weeks ago, suddenly have a lot of positive momentum for a team that’s spent most of the season in the American League East basement.
“Nothing has really changed from us from the start of the year, we’re just winning now and we’re having fun and you can start to kind of feel it,” right-hander Zach Eflin said after the Orioles’ 4-3 win Thursday. “It’s an addiction, and people are starting to feel it.”
The Orioles have orchestrated the makings of a turnaround behind their rotation. Their starters have combined for a 2.61 ERA since May 20 after posting a mark of 6.03, worst in the AL, over their first 46 games. While the offense, which is slowly getting reinforcements from the injured list, has scored more than five runs only once over that span, they’ve gone 5-1 in one-run games thanks to timely hits and a bullpen on the upswing.
Baltimore’s run has come under the guidance of interim manager Tony Mansolino, who is 10-8 since taking over for Brandon Hyde after the team fired him May 17.
“As crazy as it sounds, even when we got to 18 games [under .500] or whatever, I think just because of the point of the calendar where we’re at, it’s so early in the year, there’s hope, right? And you kind of need one of these streaks to maybe solidify that a little bit,” Mansolino said. “But yeah, you roll off six in a row and you come into Seattle and beat a heck of a team, a first-place team. Just a little bit more hope, which we’ll definitely take.”
A six-game winning streak is a six-game winning streak and the Orioles can’t afford to be picky about what their wins look like given how deep of a hole they dug for themselves. However, three of those games were against the lowly Chicago White Sox and two wins over the Mariners were decided by one run. Though their 5-1 victory Tuesday was perhaps their most complete performance to date, they’re going to need more decisive wins like that to sustain this success.
“I feel like everybody’s just getting back to the way they normally play,” shortstop Gunnar Henderson said. “We’re all just grinding together. We’re scratching these close wins, and then whenever the offense gets fully clicking, then we’ll be in a really good spot.”
No team has ever come back from 18 games under .500 and made the playoffs, but the Orioles aren’t trying to come back from 18 under anymore. They’re 11 games under .500 now, which has more historical precedents in their favor.
Since MLB expanded its playoff bracket in 2022, the average third wild-card team has finished with 86.8 wins. For the Orioles to get to 87 wins, they will have to go 62-39 the rest of the way — a 99-win pace over the course of a full season. That’s not unfathomable considering they won 101 games two short years ago. It just leaves zero margin for error.
The Orioles are 7 1/2 games out of a wild-card spot with seven teams standing in their way. They’re going to have to leapfrog a significant chunk of that group and hope the teams at the top lose enough to trim that deficit over the next eight weeks. FanGraphs gives Baltimore just a 3.6% chance to make the playoffs.
But it’s not only about where the Orioles will be by the end of the year. They have to be relevant enough by the July 31 trade deadline for the front office to justify not selling off players on expiring contracts such as Eflin, first baseman Ryan O’Hearn, starter Tomoyuki Sugano, outfielder Cedric Mullins and reliever Andrew Kittredge.
Executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias sold at the 2022 deadline despite the team sporting a 52-51 record, valuing the club’s long-term sustainability over an outside chance at making a run for a playoff spot. That calculus is much different now that the team is firmly in the middle of its competitive window — and a different owner is overseeing the franchise — but it’s still going to take a dramatic turnaround.
“It’s a long year,” Eflin said. “I understand we dug ourselves a big hole but you can always climb out of it. It’s a 162-game season. None of us have lost confidence. None of us have gone home depressed or anything. We’re here to win every single game that we have, and it’s been a lot more fun the past couple weeks, just going out, rattling off wins, finding ways to win games.”
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