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Winning Isn't EverythingMy Baltimore Orioles could be playoff contenders, and I don't like it.

By Tom Scocca
Posted Tuesday, April 10, 2007, at 1:04 PM ET

(Continued from page 1)

The damage to baseball was incalculable, and it only got worse. The next season, it was the Orioles who were the best team in the American League—and it was the Orioles who lost in the second round* of the playoffs to a lackluster Cleveland squad. (To round out the symmetry, those Indians would lose the World Series to a wild-card Florida Marlins team built through a Rotisserie Baseball spending spree.) The ensuing years would see the playoff demises of the 103-win A's, two 101-win Atlanta Braves teams, the 116-win Seattle Mariners, and even a 103-win Yankees team—to say nothing of a 100-win Cardinals team.

Meanwhile, the Orioles' punishment was just beginning. Emotionally unstable owner Peter Angelos drove off Davey Johnson after the 1997 loss. After a disappointing 1998 season, he sent away Palmeiro and Alomar. The team finished in fourth place, ahead of only the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, and in fourth place the next year, and then in fourth place again. The string of nonsuccess, eerily consistent, has reached nine years and counting, interrupted only by a one-season jump to third.

And yet: 83 wins? If the pitching comes together, if former-MVP shortstop Miguel Tejada doesn't get too disgruntled, if young outfielder Nick Markakis is for real ... If all those things go right, this team—even this team—can totally win four more games than it loses.

That doesn't guarantee they'll be in the playoff hunt. The 2006 Cardinals took advantage of the feebleness of the National League. The Orioles are in the prosperous East division of the talent-rich American League, looking up at teams that are obviously better stocked.

Then again, the Boston Red Sox are a third-place team that signed J.D. Drew in the hopes of improving. The Yankees went a week without a pitcher lasting more than five innings. The Blue Jays haven't put together two good years in a row since the wild card was invented. Sometimes, good teams have bad luck. It's not inconceivable that two of those teams—and a few more in the Central and West—could sag to the 83-win level. If that happens, Baltimore fans could be looking at a contender. I'd rather be looking at a good team.

Correction, April 10: This piece originally and incorrectly stated that the Baltimore Orioles lost in the first round of the 1997 playoffs. They lost in the second round. (Return to the corrected sentence.)

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Tom Scocca is a writer in Beijing.
Photograph of Miguel Tejada of the Orioles by Victor Baldizon/Getty Images.
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