Chris Bassitt immediately recoiled at the suggestion that the Orioles find themselves in a “big hole.”
“It’s not a big hole. I mean, how many games back of the wild card are we?” Bassitt asked. The answer is two games, as of the final out of Monday’s win. “Yeah, that’s nothing.”
That’s how the Orioles must look at things. The “big hole” in question related to the American League East, and despite a win against the Tampa Bay Rays on Monday to begin a three-game series, that divisional hole is still 11.5 games. But as Baltimore attempts to find its way out of the cellar — now 24-30 at the one-third mark of the season — there is a sense of relief as players check the standings.
“We’re three games back and I feel like we could not have played much worse,” Bassitt said over the weekend. “So, yeah.”
The consolation of not being far out of the wild card conversation is not what the Orioles set out to achieve this year. The Rays and New York Yankees have built a healthy advantage in the division, however, and given all the issues that rack the Orioles, any silver lining will be emphasized within the clubhouse.
They recognize that fundamental mistakes are still occurring. If Tampa Bay hadn’t played such a sloppy game itself, Monday’s potentially “uplifting” win, as manager Craig Albernaz said, wouldn’t have occurred.
It did, though, meaning the Orioles narrowed the gap in the wild card and can tell themselves that they are still very much in this.
The flip side, of course, is that three teams are between Baltimore and the third wild card spot, which belongs to the sub-.500 Minnesota Twins. There is ground to make up, and they need to jump those clubs to do so. The Orioles are on pace for a 90-loss season if they maintain their current pace.
Generally, 86 wins is the target for a playoff spot. To reach it, Baltimore must go 62-46 the rest of the way.
Can the Orioles find rotation stability? Beyond right-handers Kyle Bradish and Brandon Young, none of those starters have ERAs under 4.00. Can they find more offensive success? Can they play clean defense and not run into outs?
That will all be discovered over the coming months. For the moment, Baltimore will take heart in a middling American League, in which only five of the 15 clubs have winning records.
This is a critical season for more than these players. President of baseball operations Mike Elias is in his eighth season at the helm. The Orioles have been to the playoffs twice after he directed them through a rebuild, but the team was swept in both series.
Since the turn of the century, most baseball leaders don’t receive a longer leash than eight years for their first playoff win — not a series, but winning a game. Only three general managers or presidents of baseball operations have lasted more than eight seasons without a playoff win since 2000.
They are the Marlins’ Mike Hill, who lasted 11 seasons between two stints at the helm. Dayton Moore in Kansas City won a playoff game in his ninth season (and eighth full season). And the White Sox’s Nick Krall, as general manager and then president, is winless in eight seasons (this is his ninth).
So Elias, who did receive a promotion last year, could be on the clock.
But at this early juncture, those within the clubhouse see light at the end of the tunnel.
“It feels like the AL is kind of a toss-up right now,” said outfielder Colton Cowser, who delivered walk-off home runs in each of Baltimore’s last two wins. “All we can really do is control what we can control and keep playing fundamental baseball. We kind of lost it there for a little bit, not getting the bunt down and was able to come back through. But contact plays, first-to-thirds, those things like that are what’s going to keep this team rolling.”
“Thankfully, other people haven’t played up to their potential, just like we have, so I think it’s still wide open for us,” first baseman Pete Alonso said. “We expect better from ourselves, like, we gotta do it. We gotta do it on the field.”
“It’s just a matter of getting settled in a little bit,” added right-hander Shane Baz. “Learning how to win and how to be consistent. … We have so much faith in ourselves and faith in each other that nobody’s really worried about it. We’d love to have a few of those games back, but I think everybody in the clubhouse is really good about just looking forward.”
If they are looking at the projection systems, they aren’t saying it. Entering Monday, Baseball Reference gave the Orioles a 2.5% chance to make the postseason. FanGraphs has Baltimore’s odd all the way up at 23.3%. Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA standings give the Orioles a 25.1% chance.
They are perhaps that high because the rest of the American League is also struggling at such a severe level. So despite the poor start, Baltimore is bullish. This is far from over, even if the divisional race is somewhat of a “big hole.”
“I would love to win the division. It’s just cool,” Bassitt said. “But the reality is, it’s just get to the playoffs. The No. 1 goal for me always is just get to the playoffs. It’s not win the division, because there are so many times that I feel like in the past a team that I’ve been on has chased the division, and then, OK, we didn’t win the division, but we made the playoffs, and we were absolutely fried from trying to win the division. So, to me, it’s just how do you get into the playoffs?”
And once there, anything can happen.
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