Here’s something that is irking me greatly

[jabba72]

.500 or bust for me, I dont care too much who it was against. need to finish 1-5 somehow to get .500. 2-4 would be a winning record which is nice, we also have an even run differential. So any losses from here on out get magnified. 

[eddie83]

It would have been nice to win the season series but our final record matters the most to me. 
 

At the end of the day the Red Sox lineup is better than ours this year. Bogaerts is a FA as well as JDM. 
 

When Boston gets any kind of pitching it’s advantage Red Sox. Down the stretch you had the game Lyles got lit up, 2 weak offensive performances vs Hill. The high scoring loss this week and yesterday.  

[Camden_yardbird]

Bring on the balanced schedule.  I'm tired of this "stuff."

[jamalshw]

33 minutes ago, Too Tall said:

How many picked between 80 and 86 wins? I sure didn't. I questioned the pitching. It gave out - the bullpen is toast - the starters are on fumes. The offense has spells of absense with too many players who can't or won't take good at bats. Yet here we are. Six games to go. A team that has set an improvement record re won/loss. Sure, I'm disappointed we didn't do better down the stretch, but I am also proud of these guys, looking forward to 2023, and set to keep rooting over the next six.

As recently as early August, I was still guessing 78 wins. They've already exceeded my expectations from nearly two months ago and at the beginning of the year I was HOPING they would avoid 100 losses and they got win 63 to avoid that back on August 21. On a whole a very successful season, particuarly when you consider how well Rutschman has adapted to the majors (hitting against LHP notwithstanding) and the leap forward from Henderson. Add in some encouraging signs from Stowers and Vavra, a great year from Santander (particularly considering the improved OBP) and some nice breakthroughs from a few arms that look like they could be part of the future and there's very little to be disappointed about when looking from the perspective of the beginning of the season. Of course, the fun play midyear got us excited, but overall still a successful year.

[Chelsea_Phil]

5 minutes ago, Camden_yardbird said:

Bring on the balanced schedule.  I'm tired of this "stuff."

I would love a premier league like schedule , where it is perfectly balanced.  With travel no big deal like it was many years ago, I don’t see the problem doing that.  At least make it perfectly balanced in your league.

[JR Oriole]

22 minutes ago, eddie83 said:

It would have been nice to win the season series but our final record matters the most to me. 
 

At the end of the day the Red Sox lineup is better than ours this year. Bogaerts is a FA as well as JDM. 
 

When Boston gets any kind of pitching it’s advantage Red Sox. Down the stretch you had the game Lyles got lit up, 2 weak offensive performances vs Hill. The high scoring loss this week and yesterday.  

I think their lineup is a lot better.  They seem to have professional hitters all the way up and down. Felt like they just flooded the basepaths against us over the last 8 games. And they have three starting pitchers (Eovaldi, Pivetta, and Hill) who are really tough on us historically.  

[JR Oriole]

21 minutes ago, Camden_yardbird said:

Bring on the balanced schedule.  I'm tired of this "stuff."

Absolutely.  76 games against these beasts every year is just tiresome. Although we struggled with some of the bad teams this year in limited action, I would love to have had 19 cracks at teams like Oakland, Detroit, KC, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Washington, or Colorado.  Look at the AL Central.  Cleveland is good because everybody else is bad. St. Louis looks good every year because other than Milwaukee, those teams are awful. The AL West has three horrendous teams.  Our division's "worst" team went to the ALCS last year.

[Aristotelian]

Toronto especially. It seemed like we were going to own them this year. 6-2 to 8-8 is the biggest swing of the bunch *and* they were our main rival for a Wild Card at the time. 

I don't mind the others so much except that cumulatively it is depressing that we might end up with losing records against the whole division. Just reminds you of how much of an uphill struggle it is to compete in the AL East. 

[Camden_yardbird]

For me it's not even an issue where I feel like the AL East is especially strong (it is) and the Orioles will get more of a competitive advantage aging less games against it (they will).  

It really that by the end of the season I'm just tired of seeing them.

In some sports (football and hockey) that third game or playoff series you can see the adjustments made and the changes in strategy.  In baseball those same changes are obviously made but it's not so apparent that having more games against a specific team shows that out to me.  So as a spectator I am not getting much value out of seeing Xander Bogaerts 70th AB against the Orioles or Nate Eovaldis 4th start.

[tntoriole]

5 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

Why does this matter?  They are going to be 500 or better, have held their own against the best teams in the league and have a bright future.

Why let it bother you that teams in the division have beaten us one more time than we have beaten them?

.500 is not a given 

[tntoriole]

This team has been playing last place ,  bad baseball for the last month 

[OriolesMagic83]

3 hours ago, Chelsea_Phil said:

I would love a premier league like schedule , where it is perfectly balanced.  With travel no big deal like it was many years ago, I don’t see the problem doing that.  At least make it perfectly balanced in your league.

Of course the fear of being demoted to a lower league would prevent tanking.

[Jim'sKid26]

11 hours ago, Frobby said:

We had a 9-8 season series lead on Tampa and ended up losing the season series 10-9, losing the final two.

We had a 9-7 season series lead on Boston and ended up losing the season series 10-9, losing the final three.

We had a 6-2 season series lead on Toronto and have allowed it to get to 8-8.   We’ll lose that season series unless we win 2 of the final three.

New York?  Different story, they’ve kick our butts all year.  

We easily could have won the season series with Tampa, Boston and Toronto and have squandered the first two.  Boston in particular really  irritated me.   Losing the season series to Toronto after dominating them early would really add insult to injury. 

I think I understand your angst. The interesting dynamic is the inability to beat division rivals when a playoff spot is on the line. This team did not get it done. Was it talent level? Was it poor tactical decisions by the manager? Was it an unwillingness by management to spend some minor league talent as capital to bring some better players to Baltimore for the stretch run? Was it a little bit of all of these? I think you see where I'm going here.

I really think this team surprised a lot of the decision makers in the organization with their mid season success. I also think that when the team was playing meaningful games in September for the first time in 6 years, their inexperience became rather obvious, including the inexperience of the manager and GM. September was really revealing and hopefully will allow the decision makers to have a clear idea of where the holes in the team are and how best to fix them. 

[Frobby]

On 9/30/2022 at 7:15 AM, Sports Guy said:

Why does this matter?  They are going to be 500 or better, have held their own against the best teams in the league and have a bright future.

Why let it bother you that teams in the division have beaten us one more time than we have beaten them?

Because we had a very good chance to win the season series against Tampa, Boston and Toronto, and blew our chances against the first two.  If we blew it against Toronto as well, I find that annoying.   It’s not just that we lost these series, it’s that we had a lead in these series and then didn’t play well against these teams in August and September.   

[Sports Guy]

12 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Because we had a very good chance to win the season series against Tampa, Boston and Toronto, and blew our chances against the first two.  If we blew it against Toronto as well, I find that annoying.   It’s not just that we lost these series, it’s that we had a lead in these series and then didn’t play well against these teams in August and September.   

I mean, I can see being upset that they didn’t play well and blew the playoff chance.  I just don’t get why it matters that it was to division teams.  I’m more upset that they lost to Detroit and Oakland, teams that were far inferior.