It Ain't Over

[wildcard]

Its generally a bad feeling to loss 3 out of 4 at home to the Jays.   And  dropping to 4 1/2 back in the Wild Card race is no picnic.   But the O's have been resilient.  

The O's still lead the season series with he Jays 7-6.    I have read posters say the Jays are better than the O's.   That is yet to be proven.

The Jays play 8 games vs the Rays,  6 vs the O's and 3 vs the Yanks, and 2 vs the Philly would have a .551 win percentage.  That is 19 games vs teams with winning records.

The O's play 6 vs the Jays, 4 vs the Astros who they just took a series from, 3 vs the Yanks, 2 vs the Nationals with a .350 win percentage. That is 13 teams with winning records.  

It ain't over and the fat lady is not even warming up.

[Sports Guy]

She’s definitely warming up but I agree it’s not over yet.

[glenn__davis]

Bottom line - we end with 3 against the Jays.  With the tiebreaker, we need to be no more than 3 back going into the final series to technically still be "in it".   Realistically there would be no difference between being 2 back or 3 back - either way we would need to sweep that series.

So we need to make up 1.5 games to still have a chance that final weekend.  Very doable.  

[JR Oriole]

Agree about the status of the fat lady.

But I think the feel of this series made it seem like the Jays are a lot better.  Not counting the impact of errors, they had 58 baserunners and scored 25 runs…..so 1 run per 2.3 baserunners.  We had 39 baserunners and scored 17 runs…..so 1 run per 2.3 baserunners.  Equally productive from a ratio standpoint, but the differential in foot traffic was substantial.  And you could really feel the stress of that difference, as we just had such a hard time keeping them off base.  

[Pickles]

Many stranger things have happened than the O's making the playoffs this year.

For instance, a woman has willingly laid down with Alejandro Kirk.  Miraculous.  

[Frobby]

I fully agree that it’s not time to give up.  The task in front of the team has been made much more difficult due to the outcome of that series, but there’s still time to make up for it.   

I really hope the bats start producing a little more consistently.   The runs per game have been decent, but it feels like we have the occasional explosion followed by 3-4 days of poor production.  We need to be scoring 4+ on a more regular basis.  
 

 

[ScGO's]

I've worried about the depth in starting pitching all year.  The bats are letting us down currently, but I'm starting to see a few cracks in the pitching dam too.  Harvey and GrayRod are still options I suppose, but the lineup needs to work on their hitting approach a bit.  One Fat Bat and One TOR Arm away still.

[Aristotelian]

I think last night pretty much stuck a fork in us. Probably need 5-1 minimum against the Jays the rest of the way, plus probably picking up ground in the other games. I'm still hoping for something incredible but the odds are very, very low. 

[Sports Guy]

17 minutes ago, ScGO's said:

I've worried about the depth in starting pitching all year.  The bats are letting us down currently, but I'm starting to see a few cracks in the pitching dam too.  Harvey and GrayRod are still options I suppose, but the lineup needs to work on their hitting approach a bit.  One Fat Bat and One TOR Arm away still.

Need more than that.

[Moose Milligan]

I agree with SG, the fat lady is getting warmed up.

This team has been resilient but at a time where the Rays and Jays are getting better and playing good ball, we're not.  I do believe the Jays are better than us, it has been proven all year long.  We have a 1 game advantage on them in the head to head but that doesn't really matter.  

[Roll Tide]

59 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

She’s definitely warming up but I agree it’s not over yet.

We need another long winning streak. 

[Roll Tide]

8 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

I agree with SG, the fat lady is getting warmed up.

This team has been resilient but at a time where the Rays and Jays are getting better and playing good ball, we're not.  I do believe the Jays are better than us, it has been proven all year long.  We have a 1 game advantage on them in the head to head but that doesn't really matter.  

 We need to win 4 or 5 out of the 6 we have left with them

Edited September 8, 2022 by Roll Tide

[SteveA]

As glenn said above, we need to be within 3 games going into that final series to have a chance.,

1) Right now we are 4.5 back of them, 5 in the loss column.

2) In the next 8 days, we have just 5 games:  3 with Boston and 2 with Washington.   Realistically, we need to go 4-1.   Toronto has 3 at Texas, then 5 with Tampa in those 8 days.  We can certainly hope they do no better than 4-4.   So if we go 4-1 and they go 4-4, we are 3 games back of them, 2 in the loss column.

3)  Then we play them and need to win 2 of 3.   We do that, we are 2 games back, 1 in the loss column.

4) Then we have a 7 game homestand vs Boston and Houston.   Say we go 3-4.  They have 2 at Philly, and 4 at Tampa.   We lose a half game, we are 2.5 back, 2 in the loss column.

5) Then they play 6 at home with the Yankees and Boston while we play 7 at the Yankees at Boston.   We can only afford to lose half a game there (say they go 3-3 and we go 3-4; if they go 4-2, we have to go 4-3).  Not easy, but not out of the question.

That's how we get to 3 games back with 3 to play and some meaningful baseball on Monday, October 3.   And of course our getting the sweep then is in itself a long shot.   But at this point, just getting to that point is what I am rooting for.

I think it's certainly possible, but we need to get some bats going.

 

 

[Moose Milligan]

14 minutes ago, Roll Tide said:

 We need to win 4 or 5 out of the 6 we have left with them

Yep.  Tall task.  

[Gurgi]

1 hour ago, JR Oriole said:

Agree about the status of the fat lady.

But I think the feel of this series made it seem like the Jays are a lot better.  Not counting the impact of errors, they had 58 baserunners and scored 25 runs…..so 1 run per 2.3 baserunners.  We had 39 baserunners and scored 17 runs…..so 1 run per 2.3 baserunners.  Equally productive from a ratio standpoint, but the differential in foot traffic was substantial.  And you could really feel the stress of that difference, as we just had such a hard time keeping them off base.  

We were pitching two freaking AAA starters.   That really did not help.