Brandon Hyde is among the few within the Orioles’ dugout with postseason expertise.
“It’s totally different,” the previous Chicago Cubs assistant and present Orioles supervisor stated. “You’ve got serious adrenaline going.”
The upcoming collection in opposition to the Tampa Bay Rays — the Orioles’ most consequential set in years — will really feel as near playoff baseball as maybe any within the common season can.
The destiny of the American League East is within the stability, and the way in which the 4 video games at Camden Yards play out could have an outsized affect on figuring out who will declare the highest spot by season’s finish. Baltimore owns a two-game lead over Tampa Bay forward of Thursday’s opener with the potential of clinching its first playoff berth since 2016 as early as Friday.
Outfielder Austin Hays, certainly one of a number of veterans who braved the membership’s painful rebuild, stated the Orioles have executed properly at specializing in their video games moderately than how the Rays are taking part in or the sophisticated magic numbers. But they’re, after all, conscious of the collection’ stakes, and he believes they’re ready to fulfill the second.
“The games count for twice as much,” Hays stated. “You look at the games back and you know the head-to-head counts twice as much. With that being said, you can’t go out there and try to swing twice as hard, throw twice as hard or make twice as much happen. You just continue to do what you did to be in first place at this part of the season.”
After Wednesday night time’s loss to the St. Louis Cardinals, Baltimore’s magic quantity to clinch a playoff berth is 4 — that means a 95-win Orioles workforce can’t miss the postseason — whereas that determine to safe their first AL East title since 2014 is 15.
The vary of outcomes for the collection embody the Orioles going into the penultimate week of the season with a six-game lead and a magic variety of six in the event that they sweep. However, if the Rays win all 4 video games, they’d reclaim the division’s prime spot by two video games. A wrinkle to the collection that advantages Baltimore is it enters with a 6-3 file in opposition to the Rays, that means one win this weekend will give the Orioles the tiebreaker over Tampa Bay and drop their magic quantity that night time by three.
“I know that it’s going to be a big series, and it’s a team we know very well,” Hyde stated. “It’s going to be exciting for the fans, and we’re looking forward to it. We’ve obviously come a long way to play in these type of games in mid-September against a team that’s a really, really good club. I want our guys to enjoy it, honestly.”
Hays and most of his teammates haven’t participated in a collection as vital as this one. The Orioles have been MLB’s worst workforce from 2018 to 2021, and whereas they competed for a wild-card spot final season, proudly owning a good division lead is completely different than having a small likelihood of creating a September run.
This weekend’s collection is the franchise’s most pivotal within the common season in no less than seven years — and maybe for much longer.
The final time the Orioles confronted off with an AL East workforce in September with the division’s prime spot on the road was in 2016, the final season they made the postseason. The solely different two seasons within the wild-card period (since 1995) that Baltimore has performed in such a collection have been 1996 and 2012.
In 2016, Baltimore entered a four-game set in opposition to Boston on Sept. 19 three video games behind the Red Sox, however the Orioles have been swept to fall out of AL East competition. Their most vital collection earlier than that was the 2014 AL Championship Series in opposition to the Kansas City Royals when the Orioles have been additionally swept. In 2014, the final time Baltimore gained the AL East, the membership held a division lead of between 8 1/2 and 14 1/2 video games the complete final month of the season.
While this weekend and the postseason to comply with are uncharted waters for these Orioles, Hyde believes they’re battle-tested to face up to the elevated strain.
“I think last year, we played postseason-type of games late,” he stated. “There’s going to be intensity to the games, and there’s been intensity to other games we’ve played also. But everybody understands the standings and where we are from the finish line, and we’ve got to play really well.”
Several instances this yr, Orioles gamers who’ve by no means performed within the postseason have remarked {that a} sport or collection has felt what they think about a playoff environment can be like. The first got here in early May in entrance of sellout crowds in Atlanta in opposition to the National League-best Braves. Later that month, they swept the Toronto Blue Jays for certainly one of their most spectacular collection of the season. In July, they gained three of 4 in opposition to Tampa Bay — the most important collection of the season earlier than the upcoming one — and took two of three in opposition to the New York Yankees at Camden Yards in entrance of crowds the ballpark hadn’t seen in almost a decade.
Hays expects this weekend to be a good higher environment than these.
“I expect there to be a good crowd, it’s weekend games against a team that’s nipping at our heels for the top of the division,” Hays stated. “I’m sure it’s going to be an electric atmosphere. We’re going to be in our home ballpark, so I imagine we’ll feed off that. That’s going to be a tough environment for an opposing team to come and play in.”
Rays at Orioles
Thursday, 7:15 p.m.
TV: Chs. 45, 5
Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM
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Source: www.bostonherald.com
