Predict the day we clinch the AL East

[hutchead]

True, but on this day in 1969, the Cubs were 5 games up, and they finished 8 games out.

Did we have to bring up 1969? I'm still not over the Miracle Mets!

[Snutchy]

I will go with September 21 versus the Red Sox. The last home game of the year.

I have a friend in my inner-circle that's a Green Bay and an O's fan as well. I'm on to you.

[schittenden]

The Washington Post had made their predictions...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fancy-stats/wp/2014/09/04/orioles-most-likely-to-clinch-al-east-against-toronto-blue-jays-at-home/

[OFFNY]

o

September 18th, when the Yankees lose to the Blue Jays, and the Orioles are idle.

9 more days.

But now ...... I don't know if it will be the Blue Jays eliminating the Yankees, or the Yankees eliminating the Blue Jays.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/standings

[ShaneDawg85]

Folks better start looking at tickets for the Toronto series, because if things hold the way they are, you're going to have reason to celebrate during that series.

[kelsey59]

Other's could probably help me with this.

Here's is the remaining schedule up until the ending road trip.

1 - Boston

4 - NY

3 - Tor

3 - Bos.

So, does this mean the it would be 9/11 or 81% as a worse case probability?

I haven't taken statistics in over 30 years, and I have forgotten a lot of it.

[Frobby]

I don't know how you'd calculate it, but that's definitely not how you'd do it. The odds are pretty good, though. Either the Yankees or Blue Jays would need to gain three games on us in the next 11 to prevent us from clinching at home.

[Malike]

Could be 9 days could be never. I'm stunned that the Yankees are going to give Tanaka 1 rehab start before playing him again. He's a huge investment and they are going to sink it for a year and a half just to make a half assed attempt at getting into the playoffs. Just a horrible decision.

[malkusm]

Think of it this way - for every game we have remaining, we need to be that many games up. When that happens, we clinch. If we maintain our lead at 10 games, we would clinch with 10 games to go (vs. Toronto, Wednesday 9/17). If we add to our lead, earlier in the Toronto series is possible. If we slip a bit, we go into the Boston series 9/19 - 9/21.

The O's would have to really stumble for it not to happen at home, at this point. My bet is that it happens against Toronto, either game 2 or game 3 of that series.

[malkusm]

As far as actual probabilities - even with just 18 games left, that involves computer simulations. You'd need to estimate the likelihood for each team to win each remaining game, and once you do that, the exact probabilities of clinching are too computationally expensive even with that small number of games (it's exponentially more calculations for each game you add).

[Crazysilver03]

Clinching would likely occur during the Toronto series since the Orioles would have to knock out both the Yankees and Blue Jays.

Edit: It probably has a better chance of happening either in the last game of the BJ series or in the Boston series. Theoretically, we could eliminate NYY by winning the next 5 games. If we do that, then Toronto is down to at least 4 games and could be eliminated with a win or two in that series.

[JR Oriole]

Another thing to consider is the schedule. Right after we play New York, we play Toronto....and then while we are playing Boston, New York and Toronto play each other four times. So unless one of them sweeps all 4, it is going to be hard for us not to clinch at home because they will eliminate each other....unless we eliminate both of them ourselves.

I figure even if we lose tomorrow, New York will lose one of those last two with Tampa....probably Thursday when Cy Cobb pitches. Then the magic number is 8. If we can split with NY, our number over them is 4. Toronto is done with their cupcakes after the Cubs tomorrow.....they have 3 with Tampa, 3 with us, 4 with NY, 4 with Seattle, and 3 with us. No way they are getting out of that mess alive.

So I think we are clinching against Boston.

[kelsey59]

Thanks guys. I knew it would be far more complicated than I thought, I just didn't want to do math to figure it out.

[callahan09]

If I'm not mistaken, we need to be 8 games up after the next 11 games, right?

Or 9 games up after the next 10, or 10 games up after the next 9, or 11 games up through the next 8, or 12 games up through the next 7, or 13 games up through the next 6, or 14 games up through the next 5. I don't believe it's possible to be 15 games up through the next 4, because I don't know how we'd gain 5 games over the Jays in a 4 game span. So I think the earliest we can clinch is in 5 games? I dunno.

[JR Oriole]

If I'm not mistaken, we need to be 8 games up after the next 11 games, right?

Or 9 games up after the next 10, or 10 games up after the next 9, or 11 games up through the next 8, or 12 games up through the next 7, or 13 games up through the next 6, or 14 games up through the next 5. I don't believe it's possible to be 15 games up through the next 4, because I don't know how we'd gain 5 games over the Jays in a 4 game span. So I think the earliest we can clinch is in 5 games? I dunno.

The earliest we could possibly clinch is Sunday night. It would require that we win in Boston today and sweep all 4 with NY (which eliminates them). Then, the Jays would have to lose to the Cubs today and then get swept by Tampa (3 games). This scenario would give us 5 wins and give each of them 4 losses (ignoring even what NY does with Tampa this week). NY could in theory be eliminated on Saturday night, but we need the above to happen to knock the Jays out for good.