On Monday, the Orioles started an AL East gauntlet to finish their season. Of their final 58 games, 38 will be against a divisional foe, accounting for 66 percent of their remaining matchups. They’ll play the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees nine times and have ten more meetings with the Tampa Bay Rays and Toronto Blue Jays.

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The Orioles are always going to spend plenty of time playing their divisional foes because that’s how MLB scheduling works, but this feels like a unique circumstance, with all four teams in serious postseason races. The Rays and Red Sox are currently locked in a battle for the division title and Jays and Yankees are fighting for a wild card spot.

The first Yankees series quickly demonstrated the pros and cons of ending your season playing this many games against possible playoff teams.

On Monday, the Orioles got back-to-back homers from their homegrown duo of Austin Hays and Cedric Mullins, Jorge Lopez delivered a gutsy six innings with just one earned run and we even got some entertainment from the Yankee Stadium grounds crew desperately trying and failing to wrangle a loose cat on the field.

It was maybe the most entertaining win of the year, especially when it saw the Yankees losing their first home game since buying at the deadline to get Joey Gallo and Anthony Rizzo.

However, the fun was short lived after Tuesday’s game saw a rough start from Alexander Wells with Adam Plutko similarly struggling out of the bullpen. The offense being shutdown by a pitcher making his debut wasn’t particularly encouraging either. Mullins also had maybe the worst defensive game of his career, having a cutoff throw bounce off second base and letting a routine flyball fall between him and Anthony Santander. And then Wednesday’s game was similarly frustrating, with more defensive struggles in another loss. 

Regardless of if they win or lose, the remaining stretch provides the Orioles with a chance to play in meaningful games even without being in the playoff contention. The 38 games they’ll play can absolutely shape the AL playoffs, giving them plenty of chances to play spoiler.

Knowing that a late series in Boston or hosting New York could potentially ruin their season is much more entertaining than playing against random AL teams who won’t be making the playoffs this year like the Twins, Rangers and Royals.

We probably won’t have anything as dramatic as 2011’s Curse of the Andino. However it’s still pretty fun knowing that the pesky Orioles can play a role in eliminating a rival from the postseason, or at the very least, relegating them to the Wild Card Game.

Besides the fun of playing spoiler, it will also give some of the younger players the chance to play in stadiums that will have playoff atmospheres, or at least be pretty close to it.

When the Orioles visit Fenway Park on September 17th through September 19th, I’d fully expect there to be packed crowds as Boston pushes for a division title. The Orioles will eventually be dealing with these kinds of September crowds in the AL East making their own playoff push and as such, these games can be valuable for getting the younger players familiar with a loud crowd for a meaningful series in Boston or New York. Even the Jays are finally back in Toronto, albeit with capacity restrictions.

A 38-game sample shouldn’t be used for any meaningful long term assessments from the front office but it still feels like we’ll learn a lot more about this roster after it handles this gauntlet of multiple series with four possible playoff teams in their division.

When you see Hays and Mullins going back-to-back in the Bronx during a win, it feels easy to picture that kind of thing happening for the next several years. However, when you see Wells getting roughed up in his third career start, it serves as a reminder that this team isn’t exactly a playoff contender yet.

We’re also just three games into this part of the schedule, so we’ll get plenty more chances to see how younger guys handle these situations. If Tyler Wells needs to protect a one-run lead in the ninth at a packed Fenway, can he get the save? Can Ryan Mountcastle come up with a hit against a nasty Rays reliever with runners on second and third in the bottom of the ninth? 

Again, this sample won’t single-handedly determine the success of the 2023 or 2024 Orioles, but it still feels like it will be a valuable chance to learn about how players expected to be part of the future handle important games against tough opponents.

The worst-case scenario for this stretch of the AL East is the Orioles losing a lot. However, that’s already been happening the past four months, so what are you gonna do there?

On the other hand, the best-case scenario gives the young Orioles expected to be part of the next playoff team the chance to play good teams in meaningful games and maybe, they’ll even get to eliminate someone from the playoffs just like ten years ago. Either way, this stretch of the season will be important for the Orioles.

Rose Katz
Rose Katz

BSL Analyst

Rose Katz is a recent graduate of the University of Maryland’s journalism school, where she worked for The Diamondback as the online managing editor and a sports blogger. As a student, she spent almost all of her time on campus in The Diamondback’s newsroom or at Xfinity Center, Ludwig Field and Maryland Stadium. Rose gained intern experience with the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN).

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