Baltimore Orioles: Welcome to tomorrow, O’s fans!

The Baltimore Orioles defeated New York 5-2 yesterday on the final day of the regular season, thus reaching the MLB playoffs.

At the end of the day, the Baltimore Orioles didn’t have to win yesterday to get to the post season. Detroit fell 1-0 to Atlanta, eliminating them from contention and giving the Orioles the final playoff spot. However that’s not how the Fighting Showalters operate for the most part. Why wait for someone else to win or lose when you can take care of business on your own?

The O’s turned to Kevin Gausman yesterday in the penultimate game of the regular season. And he didn’t disappoint; Gausman’s line: 7.1 IP, 8 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 3 K. Keep in mind that the Orioles have in essence been playing post season games for the past few weeks or so. Point there is that all starting pitchers have been on short leashes; if you weren’t getting the job done, you were out in the second or third inning. There was no reason to do that yesterday with Gausman, as he pitched very well.

There are of course plenty of fans who I suspect think that games should be managed like that from the beginning – in that a starter should be pulled very early on if he’s struggling. But that’s another story, possibly for next year! The Orioles’ starting pitching has really stepped up since late August, and that’s a big reason why the Birds are headed to the promise land today.

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The Orioles took a 1-0 lead in New York yesterday on J.J. Hardy’s sac fly-RBI in the third inning. They also got a two-run homer from Matt Wieters in the fourth, and a second two-run homer (also off Wieters’ bat) in the sixth. New York barely put up much fight in this game, although Brian McCann’s solo homer in the last of the fourth gave them something on which to hang their hats. They also got an RBI-single by Gregorious in the eighth, but it was too little too late.

The Orioles then retreated to the confines of the visitors’ clubhouse at Yankee Stadium for a champange and beer party, courtesy of Major League Baseball. Unfortunately for the Birds, Toronto also beat Detroit yesterday, meaning that they will host the AL Wild Card game tomorrow night. So the Orioles will have to return to a place that’s haunted them for years in Rogers Centre, to play a team that’s seemingly had a bug up their behinds for the Orioles for some time.

But they’ll also be returning to a place where they found their momentum at the very end of the regular season – that being last week. The scary thing is that it’s an “automatic game seven” in that it’s one game – an elimination game. However even though they’ll be at home and so forth, the same applies to Toronto. As much as Orioles fans want to think that Toronto has their way with the Birds, they only beat the O’s one more time this year than the Orioles beat them.

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So perhaps this game is then a chance for the O’s to even the score so to speak. But they can’t look at it that way. If the Orioles look at this from the perspective of we need to win this game because we hate this team, they’ll lose. They can’t allow a rivalry to cloud their judgement or their vision – not in an automatic elimination game.

But perhaps that’s more of a story for tomorrow. Because in fact the Orioles have reached tomorrow. There was not tomorrow for so many teams yesterday, but not the Orioles. The team that so many so-called experts said would finish fourth or fifth in the division, somehow managed to muscle their way into the playoffs. Yes their task is grand tomorrow night. But you’d rather have to play a tough road game to advance than to be making golf plans today.

Next: Baltimore Orioles miss opportunity but stand at the crossroads of destiny

The fact that this team found a way to get here is a true testament to the leaderships skills they have in the dugout. They’ve all sacrificed dearly over the course of the season to achieve one goal: get to the post season. But at the end of the day what was the true toll to be paid for passage to the promise land? ONE BUCK.