Even a weak American League can't save the Orioles from themselves

The American League Wild Card race has been subject to much scrutiny this year. Many of the teams that were supposed to run away with division titles and playoff spots have incredibly underwhelming seasons, and the widespread mediocrity has made it hard to write off the Baltimore Orioles even as they've floundered around this season. Ever since the Orioles were swept by the Yankees to start the month of May, they've been somewhere between two to eight games under .500, but for the majority of that time, they had not fallen more than three games out of the Wild Card spot.

Being three games or less out of the Wild Card means that you are just one good week away from sitting pretty in a playoff. You look at the Orioles roster, and you see a list of names that should be capable of producing a good week of baseball, and yet they have not been able to put together any sort of extended winning streak to get their season turned around. Every time they manage to stack an encouraging pair of wins together, there's an even more demoralizing losing streak waiting for them on the other side. Last night's devastating loss to the Dodgers might have finally pushed the Orioles past the point of no return.

The Orioles have noone to blame but themselves for the way their season has turned out

That may sound a little hyperbolic, considering that even after the loss, the Orioles are just 3.5 games out of the wild card, and with so many games left in the season, there's not that big of a difference between 2.5 and 3.5 games back. However, last night's loss was just a symptom of what has plagued this Orioles team all year, and if you look at what they've done since the calendar flipped over to June, it's clear this team is circling the drain.

Coming into the Orioles series against the Dodgers, they had lost three of their past four series, and the non-loss was a split. As bad as those results were, what went into all those losses was worse. They melted down emotionally against the Blue Jays. They got to face the Mariners without Cal Raleigh and turned the Mariners' backup catchers into superstars. Then they got to face the Padres, who have the worst offense in baseball, and allowed them to score the most runs they've scored in the three-game series. Then they faced the Mariners without Randy Arozarena, Julio Rodriguez, and Josh Naylor, and dropped that series as well.

Over a 10-game stretch, they got as much good fortune and injury luck as you could ever ask for and turned it into a 4-6 record. Last night, they faced the Dodgers with no Shohei Ohtani and managed to come back from a 3-0 deficit only to give the game away in the ninth.

This team has multiple walk-off, game-losing throwing errors this season; they make base-running errors that would get a little leaguer benched almost every game, and their pitching staff is one of the worst in the league. Their struggles boil down to the fact that they just give games away.

Even if you were to set the bar for a playoff spot unrealistically low at an 81-81 record, the Orioles would have to go 46-39 the rest of the way. Unless the Orioles improve in every single aspect of the game of baseball, a 46-39 record feels almost impossible.

What makes this so frustrating is how wide open the AL is. If the Orioles were just one game above .500, which is not a very good record at all, they would be one of the best teams in the American League and would be considered an obvious candidate to buy at the trade deadline. The bar is so low you could trip on it, and this team still can't clear it. Failing to be competitive in this American League should have drastic consequences for the people who built this roster.

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