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AL East Preview – Why the Birds are the team to beat

man hanging orioles logo along with other teams logos on wall
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For more than a decade, baseball fans didn’t even need to look at the standings in the AL East. It was a two-horse race between the Yankees and the Red Sox. Everybody knew that both teams would be there at the end while the Rays, Jays and Orioles struggled towards mediocrity.

In 2013, the East will be flipped on its head. Come September, the O’s and Jays will be the last two teams standing, and the O’s will edge them out for the division title. Here’s why.

First, the Yankees are old and injured. On Opening Day, the Yanks will have over $80 million on the disabled list in Derek Jeter, Mark Teixeira, Curtis Granderson, Alex Rodriguez and Phil Hughes. Add to that the losses of Eric Chavez, Russell Martin, Raul Ibanez, Andruw Jones and Nick Swisher, and one has to wonder just how this team is going to score any runs. The pitching should be okay, but at what point does age catch up to Andy Pettitte and Hiroki Kuroda, and is this the year that C.C. Sabathia eats his way to ineffectiveness? Only time will tell.

The Red Sox have done a complete overhaul to their roster, adding Shane Victorino, Mike Napoli, Stephen Drew, Jonny Gomes, Ryan Dempster and Koji Uehara. Behind new manager John Russell, Boston hopes the revamped bullpen and lineup, along with the returns to form of pitchers John Lester and John Lackey can get the Sox back to their winning ways. Still, Boston seems to be a year or two away from contention.

The Rays can do one thing better than the rest of the division. They can pitch. Boy can they pitch. And as the Giants proved in 2010 and 2012, pitching wins championships. The only problem is they can’t hit their way out of a wet paper bag.

The fate of the offense rests on the veteran shoulders of the oft-injured Evan Longoria and Luke Scott and a pre-season ROY candidate in Wil Myers. The Rays will be in it all year because of their pitching, but come October, they’ll be sitting home watching the playoffs from their couches.

That leaves the Blue Jays and the Orioles. The Blue Jays won the offseason. Good for them. So did the Red Sox in 2011 and the Angels in 2012. Both teams missed the playoffs. Yes, the additions of Jose Reyes, Emilio Bonifacio, Josh Johnson, Mark Buerhle and R.A. Dickey were the talk of the offseason. But does anybody remember when we were anointing the Marlins in 2012 when they added Reyes, Buerhle, Heath Bell, Carlos Zambrano and a former World Series winning manager is Ozzie Guillen? How did that turn out? The Marlins finished dead last in the NL East at 69-93.

Show me how the Blue Jays are any different than the Marlins. Show me that 38-year-old R.A. Dickey can translate his success from the National League to the American League. And show me that Jose Bautista, Reyes, Bonifacio and Johnson can stay healthy all year. Until then, I give the edge to the O’s.

Any Orioles fan worth their salt can recite the numbers at a moment’s notice. Losing seasons: 14 straight. Wins last year: 93. Record in one-run games: 29-9, a major league record. Record in extra-innings: 16-2. Run differential: +7. This is why the critics say the Orioles will take a step back to their rightful place as cellar-dwellers of the American League East. Right?

Wrong.

Over the last 56 games of the 2012 season, Baltimore was a Major League-best 38-18. Their run differential was +69. From the time Manny Machado made his debut on August 9th through the end of the season, the defense was the best in baseball and the team ERA was 3.58. Add a healthy Nick Markakis, Brian Roberts and Nolan Reimold to a lineup that hit 214 home runs last year and the offense is going to score runs.

The pitching staff is nothing if they aren’t deep. No names jump out at you, but the rotation is filled with solid Major League pitchers with top prospects Dylan Bundy and Kevin Gausman waiting in the wings.

In a wide-open AL East, the division is there for the taking. The Orioles have a sour taste in their mouths, feeling they left a lot on the field in their 5-game division series loss to the Yankees last October. Expect this team to use that experience to get them back there in 2013.

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