I don't think the way we are winning is sustainable

[brianod]

Do you think that is likely to continue? Do you believe this offense capable of having the worst BA and OBP in the AL for an entire half of the season?

I do not. They will regress back toward their mean. If anything, I'm glad they're getting this tough stretch out of the way now, rather than in late September/early October like in 2012.

Davis has been lost most of the season. Cruz had his best half ever and has been lost since them. Adam is Adam. I'm not confident in him when he's facing a good pitcher painting the corners and throwing a low and outside slider. Caleb has been great but you can't count on his offense. Our 2bs can't be counted on. Hardy has lost his power but is still contributing. All in all, I'm not confident we will be anything other then average from here on out. Yes, I expect us to improve as the season goes on and we face easier pitching, but, I think our offense is average at best.

[jtschrei]

Yawn.

Another Orioles series win over a good team. Another complaint about the way they do it.

Unless they win in a rout, scoring many runs and not allowing any, some people will complain.

This! Wow. C'mon folks. Enjoy the great pitching performances and the winning!

[brianod]

Fair enough points. I think we could find similar holes on almost every other team in other divisions as well. Toronto and NY, despite their flaws, would be 2nd and 3rd almost everywhere else too.

I'm not saying the division is great, but they deserved some credit for winning games however they're doing it and so do we. I also am a little terrified that the Yankees aren't done...wouldn't surprise me if they raided Philly or someone else prior to the post-waiver deadline.

Either way, screw em, we're winning this thing.

Detroit trading Jackson for Price hurt their offense. If you look at the lineup they put out their against the Yanks, I'm not all that impressed. Hitters park against a Yankees team lacking their best pitcher and they can't score. They may have just over did it. Time will tell but I'm not all that impressed with them at this point.

[VeveJones007]

Davis has been lost most of the season. Cruz had his best half ever and has been lost since them. Adam is Adam. I'm not confident in him when he's facing a good pitcher painting the corners and throwing a low and outside slider. Caleb has been great but you can't count on his offense. Our 2bs can't be counted on. Hardy has lost his power but is still contributing. All in all, I'm not confident we will be anything other then average from here on out. Yes, I expect us to improve as the season goes on and we face easier pitching, but, I think our offense is average at best.

But wouldn't "average" be a significant improvement over what they have been since the break?

You just changed the goal posts. First you said that they don't stand a chance in the playoffs if they don't improve upon their worst-in-the-AL BA and OBP since the break and then you follow it up with they don't stand a chance if they're an average offense.

[VeveJones007]

Davis has been lost most of the season. Cruz had his best half ever and has been lost since them. Adam is Adam. I'm not confident in him when he's facing a good pitcher painting the corners and throwing a low and outside slider. Caleb has been great but you can't count on his offense. Our 2bs can't be counted on. Hardy has lost his power but is still contributing. All in all, I'm not confident we will be anything other then average from here on out. Yes, I expect us to improve as the season goes on and we face easier pitching, but, I think our offense is average at best.

BTW, I completely understand that this offense is flawed. Yes, they have many streaky hitters and a few holes in the lineup.

HOWEVER, there are many ways to skin a cat. In a SSS of a playoff series, you can win in so many different ways that proclaiming this team DOA due to the offense is irrational. They could certainly win a series like they just beat the Jays--offensive outburst carries the team to a win, dead offense is carried by a home run and the bullpen shortens the game, etc.

[Jonesy10]

The Rays and Red Sox are completely out of it.

The Yankees have holes at most positions. Yangervis Solarte has the 4th most WAR in their lineup and they're still starting Derek Jeter. They have no pitching outside the bullpen and the DL. It doesn't matter that they just rolled over Detroit because anything can happen in a single series.

The Blue Jays have the same exact amount of hitting WAR as the O's, despite the common perception, and their pitchers beat us by a whopping 1. That's FIP-based, too, which never shines on the O's. Their starters aren't good, their bullpen is iffy and their defense is terrible. They're probably a better team on paper than the Orioles, and a better team going forward, but not better enough to overcome the lead.

No one in this division stands out.

Don't really see how the Jays are a better team on paper, or going forward. They've had a number of players had great seasons and yet they are 6 games over .500. How many guys have had great seasons for the Orioles? Norris, Pearce, O'Day and Britton? The Jays aren't bad but they're probably a .500 team that is extremely inconsistent. They go weeks at a time where their offense is unbelievable and go 15-6 or something like that and then they fall back to Earth and they completely wipe out their hot streak. As you said their bullpen isn't good and neither is their starting pitching or defense. They rely solely on their offense which is often a problem due to their streakiness. They really only have one player having a bad season out of their regulars (Rasmus). Everyone else has been pretty good for them. Bautista, Encarnacion, Francisco, Lind, and Cabrera have all been better than anybody could have hoped for. They've had some injury troubles (Encarnacion, Lind, Lawrie) but Encarnacion is the only one of the three that hasn't had injury troubles. They've also been lucky to have Reyes healthy.

Who in the Orioles lineup has been great? Pearce? Cruz and Jones recent stretch has wiped out their good starts and made their offensive numbers pretty ordinary. Davis has been bad and hurt. Machado hasn't been great and was hurt. Hardy hasn't been great and was hurt. Flaherty/Schoop have bed awful. Wieters has missed most of the season. To my eyes it definitely seems like the Blue Jays have maxed out their talent level more than the Orioles have, and the Jays injuries aren't any worse than the Orioles.

I just think Toronto is a .500 team that's playing well but will likely finish with less than 85 wins. Didn't they go on a 21-4 run? If so they are 40-51 besides that stretch. I'd say the Orioles are clearly the best team in the division. And a majority of their lineup is still under performing, which makes it even more incredible. If the offense gets going I don't think there's another team in the AL that's clearly better.

[$Greatness$]

Somebody stopped feeding Chris Davis. He's too slim now. Looks like a normal human and not a beast like he did the previous years. Oh yes, that is real my friends. That is real!

[mdbdotcom]

We have the secret weapon: Caleb "Babe" Joseph

[Fiver]

Two things we've been able to count on for most of the year:

Bullpen and defense.

I'll add a third: pessimism on the board even after an important win.

Just enjoy this people. Stop fretting over sustainability. We are a good team. Revel in it.

[weams]

I'll add a third: pessimism on the board even after an important win.

Just enjoy this people. Stop fretting over sustainability. We are a good team. Revel in it.

This is all you get. I promise you, the day after the World Series, you will wish you had reveled in the 2 to 1 victory in Toronto more. Savor it.

[oldbird]

AJ Happ retired 14 in a row and achieved a strikeout high for him. Bullpen came in and retired three in a row. So, needing an insurance run, we went 0-17. If we want to go far in the playoffs, or even make the playoffs, our O has got to get better.

they can't pitch the same guy thru all the playoffs and the world series

[TheDirtyBird]

To be fair, look at Detroit, they are also struggling to score runs, so this is a universal problem

[hoosiers]

I don't think the way we are winning is sustainable either, but hopefully we will find other ways to supplement the winning going forward - as in the offense kicking in more.

At the end of the day, we've just gone through an incredible stretch of opponents mostly on the road since the ASB with a very impressive record.

[allsighs]

^^This^^

We won't keep winning this way because the the level of pitching we will face in many of our games down the stretch will be of lower quality than we have faced the past 30 games. The hitting will be better. We have faced a murders row of pitching and somehow are 21-9 going into tonight. I prefer to look at the positive that we have a dominating record against that quality of competition than the fact our bats have been sluggish as one would expect against the quality of pitching we have faced in those 30 games.

What pitching? about 2/3 of our schedule left appears to be against the East. The Bluejays are decent not intimidating. Otherwise we face a Yankee club with no Tanaka or Sabathia, a Rays club with no Price, and a Sox club with no Lester or Lackey. Yah there are some good young pitchers on there but young often equals gassed in September. I for one have more hope this year than I ever did in 2012 or 2013.

[oriolesmagic9]

Our starters have been awesome. Our pen has been awesome. Our offense has been abysmal. Our defense has been awesome. I think our pen will continue to be very good and I think our defense will continue to be very good but I think our starters will regress. Unless our offense picks it up, we won't keep winning like this.

Lol. And the Orioles win another series and extend their lead. Good call.