Something to be Said for .500

Well, another baseball season has come and gone, Birdland. The vendors have packed away their trays, the grounds crew has locked up the shed, the players have cleaned out their lockers, and the ushers have sealed the Oriole Park at Camden Yards gates for the final time in 2015. While the first day of the offseason is always a sad one, it’s nice to once again look at the standings and not see a .4XX under the O’s winning percentage column.

Of course, it’s disappointing to fail to make the postseason following a 96-win year that ended in a crushing ALCS sweep. We all wanted to see the team take the next step and play in a World Series, not regress back into third place and an October of vacation. We wanted some revenge on those blasted Royals – and hey, weren’t they supposed to be the ones who regressed this year? – we wanted more champagne celebrations, we wanted the RIGHT orange and black team to be the last squad standing this year.

Alas, it was not meant to be. 2015 post-mortems all over the Bird-O-sphere will attempt to explain, categorize, and reference the myriad reasons why this season was a flop. What I’d like to do, though, is commend our Birds for fighting to the end, for scraping and clawing and finishing on a high note – a five-game winning streak – and evening their record at 81-81.

That .500 record, while surely scoffed at by many fan bases, holds a special meaning in Birdland – at least for the current generation of fans. Orioles faithful are a skittish bunch, always waiting for the other shoe to drop, and for another decade-plus of losing to take hold.

I think our friends at Camden Chat put it perfectly yesterday, summing up both the paranoid undercurrent that flows through every Orioles season and the relief that comes with 81-81:

There may come a time when the Orioles lose for 14 straight seasons again – but it won't start this year. 81-81 after sweeping the Yankees.

— Camden Chat (@CamdenChat) October 4, 2015

There was a time, about a month ago, when this squad looked destined to finish below .500 for the first time since 2011. A 2-13 stretch to finish August that saw them drop out of the Wild Card spot they precariously held had O’s fans seeing visions of another Trembley-esque September collapse.

But…they kept fighting.

Consecutive series wins over the Yankees, Royals, and Red Sox, followed by a four-game split with Tampa and a sweep of the Nationals in DC had them, somehow, alive again in the playoff hunt just a few short weeks later.

Then, of course, there was an awful, listless trip to Boston, during which the team set a dubious record, not scoring a single run for the entire weekend. That sweep at the hands of the Sox crushed what hope remained, and drove the final nail into the Birds’ 2015 coffin.

At that point, .500 was the only dream we had left, and it seemed to be of the “pipe” variety.

Two more losses to the Blue Jays, and our season was officially over, just as the team from up north was dancing on OUR field, celebrating their own first division title since 1993.

Perhaps it was seeing the Blue Jays’ elation that re-inspired our club (of course, it also helped to be playing a hungover B-squad) but the Orioles suddenly woke up again, just as most fans had resigned ourselves to that aforementioned .4XX winning percentage. While it was too late to revive the flat-lined postseason aspirations, there was still pride at stake.

The Birds got up, dusted themselves off, and won the final two against the division champs (yes, against their B-squad, I know), then swept the Yankees (ugh, also headed to the postseason) to secure a third-place finish, and that oh-so-important .500 record.

No, it wasn’t nearly as much fun watching baseball this September as it was last year. Counting down “magic numbers” from 20 (Frank!) to 8 (Cal!) through 5 (Brooks!) to 1 (B-Rob!) and ultimately zero is obviously the goal each and every season. But for beleaguered Orioles fans, those of us who sat through 14 straight years of losing, .500 is a bit of a magic number as well. Fans in places like Kansas City and Pittsburgh, while they again watch their teams in the playoffs this year, can surely empathize.

I’d like to thank this year’s squad for reaching that number. It’s a consolation prize that Birdland can certainly appreciate. Let’s let this be the valley among many, many more peaks.