Rrrrr, why can't we have nice things in the AL East anymore?
The Orioles were doing a great job keeping down the Red Sox and shoving them out of the AL East race, and they were building a nice amount of momentum with the new acquisitions and additions to the pitching staff.
And yet...ONCE AGAIN...the nasty, stinking Toronto Blue Jays decided, this late in the season, that they're going to compete again, and have made their way back into first. So now the Orioles have to deal with swatting them away and moving back into first, as WELL AS the Red Sox beginning to regain momentum (thanks to a series with the Yankees). It's...annoying.
(The following is a relatively angry rant that has been bubbling for two summers now)
The way I see it, nobody decides that they're going to be good halfway through the season. You work on that shit from day one- you either play to win, or you play to win next year. No takeouts. None of that shit. No 'oh, we're gonna be okay for a while and then around June or July we're actually gonna start trying'. That's for pansies. That's for the goddamned NBA. Yes, it's cute that the Blue Jays can just win some games around June or July, but taking a pretty even record by July 31st and saying 'yeah, we can build a playoff team from that', despite the fact that a majority of the roster is hitting around .230...that's just not thinking right.
The Blue Jays right now are, ONCE AGAIN, a generally okay team that is trying to convince everyone that they're a playoff team. They're not. Aside from Josh Donaldson and Michael Saunders, and some nice starts from Marco Estrada and Aaron Sanchez, this is not a full roster. This is not complete. Last year's...while still dealing with a lot of the same problems, was more complete- at least a majority of those guys were on.
The ORIOLES...THEY'RE COMPLETE. The outfield of Jones, Trumbo and Rickard is working. The infield of Davis-Schoop-Hardy-Machado is working. Matt Wieters is having a great season. Chris Tillman, Kevin Gausman, Dylan Bundy, Yovani Gallardo and Wade Miley make a pretty damn impressive rotation, the bullpen's strong as usual, and Zach Britton's one of the best closers in baseball. That is complete. That is worthy of the playoffs. Not this 'fill in the blanks and it's there' bullcrap the Blue Jays have been forcing on us for the past few years.
So yeah. Let's Go O's. And I mean that, this time. A few years ago I got no sleep and wrote a post about how the Orioles were winning the division by default, and got tons of O's fan hate from that. This year, they're the best team in this division by a longshot. The Red Sox tried to fix things but have the same problems with their left-hand pitching. The Blue Jays are a broken team pretending to be fixed. The O's...deserve this.
Coming Tomorrow- Hopefully a happier post. Veteran third baseman working with a surprisingly potent NL East team.
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