The ‘games until the postseason’ countdown continues.

Aaaand it’s a sweep! And we’re still in first place!

Now, the Yankees were losing at one point today, which means we would’ve had first place to ourselves for once, but it didn’t quite work out that way. However, Jim Johnson has 50 saves, we’ve got three games left to play, and we’re all but guaranteed a playoff spot. This rocks.

It’s actually coming down to the last three games of the season. It’s kind of crazy to think about, really. The Orioles and Yankees are probably both in the postseason right now – if Seattle wins today and beats Oakland, they’re up by two in the Wild Card, which pretty much guarantees that they’re in. Which games they’ll be playing in are yet to be determined.

This is coming right down to the wire. It’s a lot more stressful than I’d expected. To be fair, I was expecting us to be eliminated from playoff contention by now, and yet here we are, pretty much guaranteed that we’ll be playing more than 162 games this season. It’s just that we still have more to figure out before we get there.

Three to go. That’s all there is to it. Let’s just wait and see.

Wa-hey, our run differential is only -1 now for the season!

Basically, tonight’s game can be summed up by this:

Well, this and the fact that the team scored all twelve of their runs on seven home runs tonight. That bit, too.

Feels better, doesn’t it? It’s awfully reassuring after the team struggled so much over the past few days to see the offense come out so strongly. I’m really not a big fan of depending on the home run, but let’s be honest – tonight it was pretty darn cool to watch.

Here’s the current status: we’d be in the Wild Card game. We’d also be at home since we’re ahead of Oakland by one game. This is pretty exciting to say the least since this team would get last licks and then inevitably play ten extra inning’s worth of baseball before finally walking off, so there’s a slight advantage right off the bat. There are also still six games left to play in this season, though, so let’s not get too ahead of ourselves here.

The amazing thing, though, is this: the odds of the Orioles making the playoffs this year are extremely high. There are six games left. To make it in, they and Oakland only have to outlast three more teams in the Wild Card. The Orioles have an additional advantage in doing that since they’re up one extra game on everyone else, so there’s more wiggle room there for them.

Oh, and the Yankees haven’t clinched the division yet. That’s kind of awesome, too. Usually that’s done by now, so extra points to us this season. Yay!

Now let’s take a day off and prep for those final six…

Blah.

I really don’t know what to say about this, to be honest. This was a team we could have beaten, and we flat-out didn’t win.

And now we’re farther back in the division, too. I’ve been sitting here for an hour trying to think about what to say about this game and I actually can’t think of anything no matter what. I even watched an episode of Downton Abbey, which you think would make me more creative, and nothing came up. Nothing.

I guess I should just go to sleep because there’s really nothing to talk about regarding this game.

This game was perfectly winnable until Jake Arrieta messed it up.

That’s really all there is to say about this game.

Just for you, Jake, there’s this:

Steve Johnson does it again (even though this screencap is from July)! Screencap by me.

See that kid in the screencap there? He only pitched five innings tonight, but they were five fantastic ones. He walked three, but struck out six and didn’t allow any runners to cross the plate. He’s been excellent so far, although he hasn’t been getting too deep into games. At least he pitches effectively when he’s in there.

Adam Jones couldn’t be contained in the first game of this doubleheader, going 4-for-4 with two runs scored and two RBI. He’s responsible for half of the runs in this game, actually. I’d love to see him do it again in a few minutes if he’s not too tired.

Anyhow, let’s go and watch game two and see how that goes.

Congrats, Jim Johnson!

If you told me in February that the 150th game of the season would end with Jim Johnson’s 46th save, I would’ve been skeptical. He’s really grown as a reliever over the past few seasons, sure, but I didn’t think the team would give him that many leads.

Tonight, Jim Johnson set a club record for saves in a season by notching number 46 after the Orioles beat Jon Lester for the very first time (they lost to him the previous 21 times they’d faced him). Basically, tonight was a groundbreaking evening.

The sad bit is that the Yankees won, too, so we don’t get to be tied for first place again after this exciting evening. However, we have taken the top spot in the Wild Card since Oakland lost – to the Yankees, naturally, since all these things have to be interdependent on each other to make things extra-stressful this time of year. It’s almost become a sort of dance at this point – everything these three teams do is going to affect how their postseasons begin and likely how they end, as well. The two that face each other in the one-game playoff get a roster reset after the playoff is over and then have to proceed into the ALDS, whilst the division-winning one doesn’t have to stress over that extra game.

Oakland might not even be team number three, depending on whether or not they can catch the Rangers. They’re 4.5 games out with less than fifteen to play, but they still have seven games left against the Rangers – three at home and four away.

But let’s talk about the Orioles for a moment here and look at their remaining schedule versus the Yankees’ schedule. The Orioles have two more games at Fenway before returning home, where they take on Toronto for four games (including the make-up doubleheader), get a day off, and then play the Red Sox again for three more games. They then finish up in Tampa Bay for three games. It’s a softer schedule, really, since we know the Orioles can handle these teams just fine. The Yankees still have two games left against Oakland, which is a big deal. They then face the Twins and the Blue Jays, who aren’t big deals, before finishing their regular season at home against Boston. The Red Sox are going to want to play spoiler, so that’s also a big deal.

It’s really coming down to who has the most hunger at this point. This is getting pretty darn tense.

Well, at least they gave it a go.

To be fair, I was really hoping that this would be a win because the Yankees had lost earlier in the day, but since the Yankees didn’t win the pressure was off to win this one. Well, except for the Wild Card business, but the Orioles and Yankees being tied means nothing changes there, either.

Xavier Avery tried to steal second base with two outs in the ninth in this one. He gets a ‘you tried’ star because he was thrown out. I’m not sure if the team was going for a hit and run here or not, but whatever happened clearly failed because that was how the game ended. Not exactly the best way to lose, but eh.

To be fair, this was a very close game – these teams are pretty evenly matched, which says to me that if they hypothetically meet up in the postseason there’ll be some fierce competition to be had. I’d really love to see the Orioles win tomorrow and Sunday, but this was the series I was most worried about that was left on the calendar, so I’m not going to get my hopes up. At least after this we get the Mariners, Red Sox, Blue Jays and Red Sox again. That’s a much gentler schedule to end the month before we see the Rays for the last three regular season games.

The Yankees will also see Toronto and Oakland after this weekend (during which they’re playing the Rays), but they’ll also see Minnesota (easy) and Boston. They’re finishing the season against Boston. I’m willing to bet the Red Sox would love playing spoiler to their biggest rivals. I’m kind of actually liking this all of a sudden.

I think we all deserve some sleep now, so everyone go and do that. We’ll meet back here at 9 pm tomorrow for game two.

Oh, drat. At least we were in first place for twenty-four hours.

The wheels kind of fell off in the seventh, when after pitching nicely for most of the game Miguel Gonzalez allowed three more runs, breaking a 2-2 tie and putting the Orioles down 5-2. Luis Ayala relieved him and allowed one more run, and it was Brian Matusz of all people who stopped the bleeding. (Kid’s doing well in the bullpen, actually.)

Here’s the real challenge, though: the next four days are what might really decide things for us, since they’ll be the last time we directly face the Yankees in the regular season. This direct competition between the two teams competing for the lead in the AL East means that they could make or break one another depending on how these games play out, so the Orioles need at the very least a 2-2 split of the series to stay remotely close. Preferably, they’ll win at least 3 out of the 4 games and take the lead by a game, but I don’t want to get overly optimistic.

The offense, I think, is going to be more important than ever in this upcoming series. It’s never the pitching that I’m worried about, especially with the lovely bullpen we’ve got, but rather the offense deciding to take some time off, as they’ve been wont to do this season from time to time. I think they’ll be locked in, though – the team’s realized how important this is and what a wonderful opportunity they have right now, and it’s showed in the way they’ve been playing as of late.

I know I sort of overlooked this series a couple of days ago, but it’s definitely more important than I let on because it really can define the AL East this time. I’m going to be really, really nervous over this, I know it. Augh.

Murphy is doing a fabulous impersonation of me right now.

I’m writing this as the Orioles have just come off of a 12-0 victory over the Blue Jays. This isn’t necessarily the biggest news of the day, though. Things were pretty quiet for the first four innings before the Orioles put up three runs, one run, three runs and five runs over the next four innings. Their ninth was quiet, but their work was done. Zach Britton also notably went seven innings and only allowed four hits, striking out two and walking nobody. Even Kevin Gregg struck someone out tonight. Oh, and for a little while the roof stopped working at the Rogers Centre and people got wet.

Still, though, none of those stories is the biggest story right now. That’s the game that’s still going on right now on the Gulf Coast of Florida.

As I write this, the Yankees are losing, and that would put the Orioles in a tie with them for first place in the American League East.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is unfathomable, or so everyone seemed to think back in February and March. Everyone thought this team hadn’t properly addressed its needs. Everyone thought they’d be cellar dwellers again. Whilst many of the otaku who congregate in Baltimore for Otakon are, true to the connotations the word ‘otaku‘ carries in Japan, actual cellar dwellers, the Orioles most certainly are not.* This team has a couple of intangibles: drive and confidence. It’s made them believers, allowing them to carry themselves this far. They believed that they could do this, and sometimes that’s genuinely what it takes to actually make people do things: the knowledge, or at the very least the belief, that those things are possible.

And it happened. Here they are, tied for first place. In the time it took me to write this article, the Yankees lost to the Rays 5-2. We’re in first place. It’s a tie, but we’re in first place. It’s September 4th.

*Let it be known that this otaku lives in her own bedroom in her parents’ house right now, but does not live in the basement.

WE GAINED A GAME! WE’RE ONE GAME OUT!

The Yankees just lost to Tampa Bay…and we beat Toronto 4-0. This is the actual best. We’re only one game behind the Yankees for first place in the AL East. It’s September 3rd. SEPTEMBER. 3RD.

And who thought this would happen? Pretty much nobody. I think we should just go and celebrate all of these things:

• Joe Saunders pitched really, really well. We needed that today.
• ONE GAME BACK ASFRTRDYGSTRGSZF
• The Rays pulled it out for us in the bottom of the 8th. WHEEEEE!

Everyone go and enjoy your barbecues today! I’ll be off celebrating this win and drawing comics and watching Downton Abbey.

And doing junk like this. This, too: