Another series, another round of unlikely heroes leading the Orioles to victory. The four-game set against the New York Yankees started Friday afternoon with a walk-off hit for Jimmy Paredes and ended on Sunday night with a walk-off hit by Kelly Johnson. Just O’mazing. Now the Toronto Blue Jays come to town against a team fully motivated to clinch a division title in Baltimore.
Magic number down to 3
It has been enjoyable to watch social media blow up after every Orioles win with a countdown of the Orioles magic number. This fan base deserves to “enjoy the ride” and because of the way the O’s have been playing, it is almost a near lock they will clinch this week, with the first chance happening as soon as Tuesday night.
Clinching early is huge in a lot of ways, especially for a team who has had many players dealing with nagging injuries. J.J. Hardy can rest to make sure his back doesn’t act up again, Nick Markakis and Adam Jones play every game, so it would be nice to have them rest a couple of games over the last week and a half of the season. Most importantly, Buck Showalter can set up his rotation exactly how he wants it. Speaking of…
What should the postseason rotation be?
I have been asked a lot over the last few weeks about the starting rotation for the first round of the postseason. Chris Tillman will definitely be pitching Game 1 and if the series goes all five games, he will more than likely be handed the ball in the match-up that would send the O’s to the ALCS. This makes the remaining candidates for games 2-4 between Bud Norris, Wei-Yin Chen, Miguel Gonzalez, and Kevin Gausman.
Norris is an absolute bulldog and is coming off his best performance in an Orioles uniform with a 10 strikeout performance against the Yankees, so he will get the nod in one of the games. Chen allows the Orioles to have a lefty start and has pitched extremely well since July, so he will get the nod.
The decision comes down to Gonzalez or Gausman. Both have pitched well, just like the entire rotation, but I can see Showalter wanting Gausman’s high 90’s fastball coming out of the pen late in the ballgame to secure a playoff victory.
No offense to Brian Matusz, Tommy Hunter, Brad Brach, or T.J. MacFarland, but a combination of Gausman, Andrew Miller, Darren O’Day, and Zach Britton to hold onto a playoff lead is absolutely filthy.
As I am writing this and looking up the starters’ stats, it is crazy to think that their big free agent signing in Ubaldo Jimenez was supposed to stabilize a weakness to the team and he isn’t even in the discussion for the rotation or a roster spot in the postseason. Moreover, the supposed weakness is now an absolute strength and the “experts” who haven’t noticed that, aren’t doing their jobs. Just count the number of times over the next couple weeks where they will use the term, “they lack an ace in the rotation to succeed in the playoffs” as their argument to why the Orioles aren’t good enough.
We know better. Bring on October baseball.
