Orioles vs. Brewers discussion: September 18

It's not an impossible task. The Orioles have had some good baseball against good teams at times this year. They are capable of playing well. They are also fully capable of not playing well, reflected in their records against teams like the Yankees (2-8) and Red Sox (4-9). Not being competitive against two of their AL East rivals is one reason why they are where they are.

Scoreboard watching is almost entirely irrelevant. The Orioles have to win enough to get themselves to 83 wins and then see what happens. If the Orioles do win tonight, the best thing for their slim chances beyond that would be if the Guardians beat the Athletics and the White Sox lose to the Tigers. It's better for the Orioles if the White Sox are the third wild card team rather than the Central leader because the O's have the head-to-head tiebreaker over Chicago , which they don't over Cleveland .

Again, though, it doesn't matter if the Orioles don't go 8-1. Maybe they could go 8-1 and it still wouldn't matter! That's the problem with how many games they've blown that they should have won this year, such that they now face a three game deficit with nine games to play. They have had some bad luck this year, to be sure, but mostly the players who were supposed to play well have not played well, with the exception of Pete Alonso . I like that guy.