Orioles in 1st place

[backwardsk]

But with significantly less games left to play. :thumbsup1:

And they say there is no clock in baseball.

[oldbird]

Looks like they are still in 1st place!!! Go Orioles

[Il BuonO]

But with significantly less games left to play. :thumbsup1:

And with no damaging starts from Ubaldo. Significantly less damage from out of the pen with a seven run lead, idiotic as though that may seem.

[eddie83]

And with no damaging starts from Ubaldo. Significantly less damage from out of the pen with a seven run lead, idiotic as though that may seem.

I was at the game today and I just knew he was going to struggle. The Twins didn't quit earlier and he hadn't pitched in awhile. Plus with it being 9,000 degrees I knew it wasn't going to be easy, that would of been to simple. Shame we had to use Britton but when you are up 9, hard to complain.

[Norfolk orioles]

Being in first place in the al east by 9 games is made even more impressive when one considers the fact that we've been missing machado and wieters for a large chunk of the season, Davis went from a MVP candidate to a guy who will struggle to break the Mendoza line this year and finally, our single largest offseason acquisition has been an abject failure.

Just imagine how far ahead we'd be if we'd stayed healthy and made a more intelligent offseason acquisition than ubaldo.

Impressive stuff, I think you have to give Buck the credit over Dan IMHO, he has this team operating with a laser like focus game after game after game. My admiration for Buck has grown immeasurably this year.

[LoyalBirdFan]

Nelson Cruz deserves some credit, he always seems to play on winning teams.

[allquixotic]

Huh. Even though wild card hopes are fading for the Jays and the Yanks, the honor of second place in the division seems wide open. I don't think it's outlandish to talk about the Rays finishing the season in second place in the East. Not sure any of the three teams will get a wild card spot, but they all have a fair shot at second.

[Spy Fox]

Many of you may have seen this but I discovered today a pretty sweet graph at MLB.com that tracks the playoff probabilities of each team throughout the season. They use the Baseball Prospectus probabilities which were pretty pessimistic of the O's at the beginning of the season. The Orioles are basically plateaued from their initial 16% to an 18% mark on June 10, and then from mid-June on it is awesome to see their meteoric rise to the top.

You can pull up the other divisions too.

And we all know nothing is truly 100% or 0% until it's clinched, but in case you're wondering according to this graph the Red Sox reached 0% on July 31. The Rays reached 0% on August 29. The Orioles, since August 31, are at "100%".

Edit: I just noticed they have these on the same page going back to 2012 too, so you can also check out the 2012 O's even more ridiculous rise to the top as the odds had them rising from 8% on August 23 to 100% on September 30. Woah.

Edited September 3, 2014 by Spy Fox

[Bahama O's Fan]

Ten games up with nineteen to play. Has anyone ever blown a lead this big at this point?

[weams]

Ten Games is a heck of a big lead.

[Spy Fox]

Ten games up with nineteen to play. Has anyone ever blown a lead this big at this point?

No, I believe the Red Sox 2011 was the largest September collapse there's been and they had a smaller lead (9 games) at an earlier point in the month (Sept 3).

[ExileAngelos]

Ten games up with nineteen to play. Has anyone ever blown a lead this big at this point?

We basically need to take one out of the eight games vs the MFY's to avoid even breaking a sweat.

[webbrick2010]

I hope we play strong, go at least 10-9 to finish with 94 wins, one better than 2012

[Dannyboy]

o

(POSTED ON AUGUST 31st)

2 weeks late, and the dominance continues.

This team REALLY HAS manhandled the division, ala the 1979 team.

If you put Detroit in the division like they were in 1979 the O's would only have a 6 game lead. Throw in the Indians and Brewers and a more balanced schedule, I'm sure it gets tighter. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they are up 11 games in the division its jmo that you can't compare the 2.

[TonySoprano]

At the end, 93 games in first including the last 78 in a row.