Baltimore’s schedule is finally easing up. It won’t change players’ mentality. – The Denver Post

If one of Brandon Hyde’s players were to ask him the difference between the major leagues’ regular season and postseason, the Orioles’ manager would point to this weekend in Seattle as a close comparison.

Baltimore’s mid-August meeting with the Mariners — featuring a consistently packed stadium, ace-level pitching and games where, as Hyde put it, “every little thing matters” — evoked thoughts of October in Hyde, who frequented the playoffs while on the Chicago Cubs’ coaching staff but has yet to reach them in five years guiding the Orioles. This year’s team is well-positioned to end that drought.

Despite owning baseball’s most challenging schedule thus far, the Orioles have fully established themselves as one of the sport’s best teams. Through Sunday’s series finale with Seattle, Baltimore has played 83 of its 118 games against teams with winning records, the most of any club. But over the next month, the Orioles will play only two series against teams currently above .500, both coming against American League East opponents, with the division featuring five winning clubs.

The soft spot in the schedule gives Baltimore the chance to expand on its three-game lead over the Tampa Bay Rays and further improve the likelihood of its first playoff appearance since 2016. But several Orioles said the stretch won’t change the mental approach that’s led them to the AL’s best record.

“One thing that myself and some of the other veterans have preached from day one is taking care of today’s business,” backup catcher James McCann said. “Not worrying about the standings, not worrying about who we play tomorrow, not worrying about the next road trip. We’re worrying about each inning, each pitch, and if we win each pitch in each inning, it’s going to stack up to a lot of wins. And that’s what you’re seeing.”

A young Orioles team has more than held its own against baseball’s other playoff contenders. The Oakland Athletics, the owners of the majors’ worst record, are the only other team with more than 78 games against winning opponents; the Atlanta Braves, the only team with a better record than Baltimore, have played 59 such games. Baltimore’s 47 victories in these matchups are nine more than any other team.

Relatedly, the Orioles have played a league-low 35 games with losing teams, going 26-9.

“It’s been a tough schedule, for sure,” second baseman Adam Frazier said. “We’ve just kind of been preaching take care of the little things all year, and that’s going to lead us to be in a position to win those games every night.

“I think a lot of these young guys have grown up pretty quick. That’s what we talked about at the start of the year: The faster we can get them to grow up, the better off we’ll be. I don’t know if anybody saw us being this good, but that’s where we’re at because of it.”

Veteran starter Kyle Gibson recalled how when he first came to the majors a decade ago, he looked at opposing lineups for contending teams and at times dreaded the stacks of talented hitters he saw within them. He said the inexperienced players among the Orioles don’t have those same hesitancies.

“When you get in a lot of these games with teams everybody knows are really good, it doesn’t seem to faze these guys,” Gibson said. “It doesn’t seem like they have a mentality where they feel overmatched or feel like they’re out of a ballgame.”

The Orioles’ goals of reaching the postseason could certainly become more in reach over the next month. All but six of their next 27 games through Sept. 13 are against sub-.500 clubs, with the possibility the Arizona Diamondbacks and Los Angeles Angels, Baltimore’s first two opponents of September, climb above that mark by the time the Orioles visit.

But that won’t change how players view them. Gibson acknowledged the importance of getting ahead early against struggling opponents, given that they’re less likely to battle back into a game, but he said the Orioles will otherwise keep playing the same way. Frazier noted the dangers of a team taking its foot off the gas at this time of year, risking an inability to put it back on.

“We know what’s at stake,” first baseman Ryan Mountcastle said. “No matter who we’re playing, they’re still a big league team, and it’s going to have really good players on it. We’re going to take each series the same and just do whatever we can to win.”

What’s to come?

The Orioles’ lighter slate begins with a disappointing team and another that was expected to struggle. Baltimore plays three games with Manny Machado’s San Diego Padres, who are 56-62, 15 1/2 games out in the National League West and 5 1/2 out in the NL wild-card race. Right-hander Dean Kremer, the lone player left in Baltimore of the five they acquired from the Los Angeles Dodgers for Machado in 2018, is scheduled to start Wednesday’s series finale.

The Oakland Athletics have been baseball’s worst team almost all year. The Orioles, who are familiar with that position, have a record 40 games better than Oakland.

What was good?

The return of Cedric Mullins was always going to provide a boost to the Orioles, but it happened in rather emphatic fashion over the weekend in Seattle.

On Friday, in his first play back in center for Baltimore after missing 24 games with a right groin strain, he made a leaping catch to begin the bottom of the first. He scored the game-winning run in Saturday’s 1-0 victory. Sunday, he robbed a game-tying home run in the bottom of the ninth, and after the Mariners managed one two pitches later anyway, he delivered a game-winning homer in the top of the 10th.

“It’s a difference when he’s not out there,” Hyde said.

What wasn’t?

When The Baltimore Sun began its weekly Orioles reset in 2019, this section was generally devoted to the latest embarrassing on-field happening in a season full of them. But now, the only embarrassing thing about the Orioles is their CEO. Maybe it’s John Angelos who should stop making references to the past.

A year of unforced errors for Angelos came to a head last week. Monday, it was reported that MASN announcer Kevin Brown had been pulled from Orioles broadcasts after he mentioned the team’s past struggles against the Rays during a pregame segment July 23, with multiple media outlets reporting that Brown’s absence stemmed from Angelos — the CEO of both the Orioles and MASN — taking umbrage with those factual remarks. Instead of any national talk on the Orioles being about their lead in the AL East, it instead centered on Brown, Angelos and the latter’s illogical punishment of the former. After an absence of nearly three weeks, Brown returned to broadcasts Friday, but not before issuing a four-tweet statement so clearly crafted with direction from the Orioles that YES Network and ESPN broadcaster Michael Kay aptly referred to it as a “hostage tape.”

What happened between was perhaps more damning, with Angelos’ handling of the Orioles’ expiring lease at Camden Yards also drawing scrutiny. Despite the team being guaranteed access to $600 million in public funds to upgrade the ballpark should it agree to a long-term lease, Angelos has asked for more throughout negotiations, including an additional $300 million from the state, development rights for state-owned parking lots between Oriole Park and the Ravens’ M&T Bank Stadium, and the Orioles not having to pay rent to their landlord, the Maryland Stadium Authority.

Angelos also sat on his hands for about 10 weeks, electing to stop negotiations with the MSA after the 2022 election until Gov. Wes Moore took office. Angelos revealed that in a Jan. 31 letter to Moore in which he suggested a two-year extension to the lease to allow more time to negotiate. The next day, he declined an option in the agreement to add another five years, leaving 11 months until its expiration. There are now fewer than five left.

Not to be forgotten, Angelos’ 2023 has also featured him twice offering to go over the Orioles’ finances with reporters with zero intention of following through, all while claiming to be transparent. In a sense, Angelos is right about that: His guise is easy to see through.

On the farm

Chayce McDermott, one of two right-handed pitching prospects the Orioles acquired in last year’s deadline deal that sent fan favorite Trey Mancini to the Houston Astros, has excelled since a promotion to Triple-A Norfolk.

With five innings of one-run ball Wednesday, McDermott has a 1.88 ERA while striking out a third of batters he’s faced in five appearances. McDermott, who turns 25 later this month, is Baltimore’s No. 14 prospect according to Baseball America.

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