Unfamiliar Territory for an Unexpected Team

It’s September 4^th and the Orioles are 75-59. They are one game out of first place, behind a Yankees team that is having problems with injuries and old-age.

If you were to ask a baseball fan at the beginning of the 2012 MLB season about the possibility of the Orioles making the playoffs, let alone possibly winning the division, I guarantee no one would have said they could make the playoffs. Not even close.

The only people that would believe the Orioles would make the playoffs were the following: Peter Angelos, Peter Angelos again, someone who is experimenting with hard drugs, and that overly-optimistic Orioles fan that says that team will make the playoffs every year.

While many experts and fans alike believed that the Orioles winning ways were all due to luck, it is no such thing as luck anymore.

Maybe it was luck in April, May, and June. But July, August, and September are the months that show which teams are for real. Despite the Orioles being “lucky”, I do not think luck is the case anymore.

While their run differential is -31, it only shows that when the O’s win it is usually in close games and when they lose, they really lose badly.

The main reason for their successful ways is because of their Einsteinian manager Buck Showalter and because their bullpen has been near-lights out the whole season.

However, a team cannot just win with two good qualities. The O’s may have an unstable rotation, but that rotation has won them plenty of games this year, even with the mixing and matching Buck Showalter has had to do. The O’s lineup may be considered average to below-average, but different players throughout the whole year have been able to contribute each and every day.

While the O’s may have a more difficult schedule left than AL East opponents New York and Tampa Bay, going .500 (14-14) still gives the Orioles a great shot of making the playoffs as one of the two Wild Card teams.

If you still don’t believe in the Orioles chances then I’m not sure what to tell you.

They have been proving everyone wrong this season, and can continue to do so for the next month.

The Orioles could end a 15-year playoff drought and I really believe that they can.

The question all O’s fans have been asking is “why not us?”

Why can’t we do it? The Orioles still continue to prove everyone wrong.

A playoff berth would really be “lucky”, wouldn’t it?!