Yesterday the Orioles clinched the postseason for the first time since 1996-1997. I supposed I knew that it had been that long because I remember the Buck Showalter O’s never made back to back playoffs and before that they hadn’t made the playoffs in my lifetime but even though I knew that, seeing all the graphics and tweets and headlines about first back to back playoffs since 97’ really brought into perspective how little success the Orioles have had over the past 27 years compared to the current era of Orioles baseball.
Making the playoffs in back to back seasons is such a low bar that here is the last time every MLB team made the playoffs in back to back seasons:
NYY: 2021-2022
BOS: 2017-2018
TBR: 2022-2023
TOR: 2022-2023
CLE: 2017-2018
DET: 2013-2014
KC: 2014-2015
MIN: 2019-2020
CWS: 2020-2021
HOU: 2022-2023
SEA: 2000-2001
TEX: 2015-2016
OAK: 2019-2020
LAA: 2008-2009
PHI: 2022-2023
NYM: 2015-2016
ATL: 2022-2023
WSH: 2016-2017
MIA: Never
MIL: 2020-2021
CHC: 2017-2018
CIN: 2012-2013
STL: 2021-2022
PIT: 2014-2015
LAD: 2022-2023
SDP: 2005-2006
ARZ: 2001-2002
SFG: 2002-2003
COL: 2017-2018
So good news we have an expansion team that started in 1993 to thank for the fact that we didn’t have the current record for longest drought of making the playoffs in back to back seasons and by the way they had won multiple World Series since the last time Baltimore made the playoffs in back to back seasons.
The fact that the O’s could end the season with 3 straight losing months has made it hard to appreciate that in the big picture this is a good team and even though nothing is promised they are built to be a good team next year and the year after that and so on with more talented players in the farm system and a new owner that should be willing to spend enough money to get us up to at least a league average payroll so there is a lot of be optimistic and excited about and for my whole life up until last year that was simply not the case. It’s crazy how fast you can go from being the kind of fan who would be just happy to have a winning team to being extremely disappointed you didn’t win the division and have one of the best records in the league but that is exactly what has happened to me and many O’s fans.
As much as I hate to even think about this there was a real possibility that the Orioles could have totally regressed this year and missed the playoffs and 2023 would have been labeled a flash in the pan and we would have had to go into the offseason with questions of whether or not this young core was actually good enough to build around or if they were going to plateau and peter out like the 2021 White Sox or the 2021 Giants or the 2022 Mariners or any number of teams that have 1 great season that makes you feel like they’re going to be contenders for awhile but then never even sniff the playoffs before having to detonate their once promising core.
So they managed to beat the 1 hit wonder allegations and I think it is also relevant to note that they are going to make the playoffs in back to back years as division champs and then the top wild card team so they’re not sneaking in as 83 win 3rd wild card team they would have made the playoffs in back to back seasons even they last minute switched it back to 1995 rules in the last week of the season here (which I really wouldn’t mind because that would vault us into the ALDS) so this is not some mickey mouse playoff spot we are getting.
What was interesting to me was watching the videos of the guys celebrating after they clinched the playoffs and they let out that big roar when Hyde finished his speech and they were chugging from the hydration station and O’Hearn said Twitter isn’t real (which is kind of a super online thing to say during a big celebration but twitter is probably where you get access to your biggest haters and I guess it’s normal to think about the haters when you’re celebrating a big win.) and I just felt really proud of this team and happy for them after months of feeling mostly frustrated.
In Hydes short speech he showed a lot more emotion than normal and he came down hard on the sentence “You guys have dealt with so much CRAP” and what we sawing in the ensuing celebration was a team that had been frustrated with their play as a group and individually just letting it all out. The losing had clearly been affecting them over the last few months Cedric Mullins told reporters he had been trying to tell the young guys that this wasn’t anything compared to what it was like when the team was actually bad and that they were in a great spot but even with guys like Cedric and Tony and even Mountcastle that had been around real losing it had to be hard for a lot of these guys who had come up and only experienced winning month after winning month as big leaguers.
I hope that the celebration takes a weight off their shoulders and they are able to stop pressing and we see them return to the confident and competitive team that they were earlier in the season. The reinforcements will definitely help as Westburg, Urias and Mountcastle all came back this week and all had hits last night, there were games during those guys’s absence that the Orioles would struggle to get 3 hits all game.
The O’s are all but locked into the top wild card spot so the remaining games on their schedule don’t really matter from a wins and losses perspective as much as the bats getting into a rhythm and everyone staying healthy matters. Their opponent in the wild card round is undecided but it will either be Detroit or Kansas City. I’m not sure yet which one I would prefer as Detroit kind of owned us this past month but going against the Royals in the playoffs brings back a lot of bad memories. Either way we are stuck going against a nasty lefty in game 1.
The Dishwasher 
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