After the Rangers lost on Sunday, the Baltimore Orioles officially clinched a playoff berth and celebrated the achievement by taking down the Rays in extra innings. It was quite the scene after the Orioles' walk-off victory, but now Baltimore has their eyes set on winning their first division title since 2014.
There is still a lot of baseball left and the Orioles have quite a bit to play for the rest of the way. Not only do they have a two game lead in the AL East as of today, but they also have an outside shot of securing home field advantage throughout the playoffs thanks to the Atlanta Braves getting swept by the Marlins over the weekend. Here is a look at where the Orioles' magic number to win the division stands and other playoff goodness.
Baltimore Orioles Magic Number - 9/18
As of Monday, September 18th, the Baltimore Orioles. magic number to win the American League East is 10. Importantly, the Orioles own the tiebreaker with the Rays as they handily won the season series with Tampa thanks to winning the last two games of last weekend's series. Currently, the Orioles are also three games back of the Braves for the best record in MLB with 13 games left.
A quick look at the playoff odds shows the Orioles in the driver's seat. Obviously the Orioles have locked down a playoff spot, but Fangraphs has Baltimore with a 80.6% chance of winning the AL East and a 5.2% chance of winning the World Series. Baseball-Reference likes them even better than that with an 85.3% chance of winning the division and a 12.2% of winning it all in 2023.
Strap in, Orioles fans, because Baltimore will be in the postseason in 2023 and it certainly looks like they have a real shot at making a deep postseason run.