For the previous six years — and 34 of the past 40 — this would’ve been it.
The Major League Baseball regular season ended Sunday, with the majority of teams playing their final game of the year.
Not the Orioles.
They played their 162nd game Sunday afternoon — an inconsequential 6-1 loss to the Boston Red Sox at Camden Yards — and unlike most years in the past four decades, baseball in Baltimore is far from over this fall.
“It feels great,” slugger Anthony Santander said. “As players, that’s what we looking for when we go to spring training. We got this opportunity this year, and we’re excited.”
The Orioles, the for the first time since 2014, get five days off — — after ending the regular season with the circuit’s best record at 101-61. The only team in the major leagues with a better mark are the National League-best Atlanta Braves (104-58).
Baltimore will play the winner of the wild-card series between the American League’s Nos. 4 and 5 seeds. The Tampa Bay Rays, the team the Orioles beat out for the AL East crown, are the No. 4 seed and will host the fifth-seeded Texas Rangers in the best-of-three wild-card series. The AL West champion Houston Astros also earned a bye as the No. 2 seed and in the ALDS will face the winner of the wild-card series between the third-seeded Minnesota Twins and sixth-seeded Toronto Blue Jays.
The Orioles went 8-5 against the Rays and 3-3 versus the Rangers this season.
“I feel like every team is really good, and every team has their strength,” manager Brandon Hyde said before he learned who the Orioles could play in the ALDS. “They’re all going to be really hard teams to play, Tampa included, as we saw this year. To get this far and to win as many games as these teams have done and the lineups they put out there — we’re going to face really good pitching also, whoever we play — it’s going to be a real challenge.”
The last time the Orioles won at least 101 games was in 1979. The win total is tied for the fourth-most in franchise history. The only other Baltimore skipper to win at least 100 games in a season is Earl Weaver.
“Only a couple teams have won 100 games this year, and we’re one of those and really proud of how we played for six months,” Hyde said. “We didn’t play our best baseball game today, unfortunately, in the last game in front of the home fans, but how well we played this year, home and away, is something definitely to be proud of.”
The end of the regular season puts a final stamp on the . Two years ago, the Orioles lost 110 games. The 49-game improvement is eight better than any other club in at least the past 100 years, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
The ALDS begins Saturday with Game 1 at Camden Yards, which will be the club’s first playoff game since 2016 and first at Oriole Park since 2014. The game time has yet to be announced. Games 2 and 5 (the latter if necessary) will be in Baltimore next Sunday and Oct. 13, while Games 3 and 4 (the latter if needed) will be on the road Oct. 10-11.
With the Orioles entering the weekend with the in hand, they sent out an unconventional lineup Friday and pre-planned how their pitching staff would handle the nine innings on Saturday and Sunday. Ace Kyle Bradish pitched just two innings Sunday, as Hyde said the goal was to “keep his routine going,” perhaps in preparation to start Game 1 on Saturday.
Bradish was his usual self, striking out five in two no-hit innings to bolster his case for the AL Cy Young. New York Yankees right-hander Gerrit Cole has an inside track to the award, according to Vegas sportsbooks, but Bradish will likely receive votes in just his second big-league season.
The 27-year-old ends his regular-season campaign with a 12-7 record in 30 starts. Across 168 2/3 innings, he posted a 2.83 ERA with a 1.04 WHIP and 168 strikeouts. He emerged this summer as the Orioles’ ace, as his second-half ERA of 2.34 is best in the majors ahead of Cole (2.35) and teammate Grayson Rodriguez (2.58).
Bradish is the first qualified Orioles pitcher with an ERA below 3.00 since Mike Mussina posted a 2.54 mark in 1992. The right-hander’s 2.23 ERA in 13 starts at Camden Yards is the best single-season mark for a pitcher with at least 70 innings at the ballpark since it opened in 1992.
Like , Baltimore’s bats were cold. Unlike , they didn’t break out late. Red Sox right-hander Tanner Houck didn’t allow a hit until Anthony Santander recorded Baltimore’s first hit with two outs in the sixth inning. The Orioles’ only other knock came on Adley Rutschman’s RBI single in the eighth.
Santander ends his regular season with a .797 OPS and a team-high 95 RBIs. His 28 homers are tied with Gunnar Henderson, who was named the on Saturday, for most on the squad. Rutschman ends his sophomore regular season with a team-best .374 on-base percentage, 20 home runs and 80 RBIs.
Five of the Red Sox’s six runs were unearned, as the Orioles’ normally sure-handed defense wasn’t. Three errors, two made by Henderson, aided the Red Sox to a two-run third off reliever Danny Coulombe and a four-run seventh off left-hander Cionel Pérez. In addition to Bradish’s five punchouts, an Orioles bullpen of Coulombe, , Shintaro Fujinami, DL Hall, Pérez, Yennier Cano and Cole Irvin, who was recalled from Triple-A on Sunday morning in place of Baltimore-area native Bruce Zimmermann, combined to strike out 11.
Sloppy play aside, Hyde was just happy to make it out of the weekend healthy.
“I was nervous the last two days, honestly,” he said. “When you’re just playing for pride a little bit and playing for your record and playing for your numbers, you want guys to not get hurt, so I think we’re in good shape.”
The fans also weren’t too concerned with the poor performance. The 36,640 fans at Camden Yards gave the best Orioles team in four decades a standing ovation after the loss.
The Orioles cap the 2023 regular season with a total attendance of 1.93 million — a per-game average of 23,911. That’s a 41.5% increase over 2022, but it still ranks just 21st in MLB.
“It’s one thing that I want to make sure that we recognize our great fan base and all the support they gave us this year,” Hyde said. “Fortunately, we’ll be playing in front of them some more, so we’re excited about that.”
Hyde said the Orioles will take Monday off and hold workouts Tuesday through Friday. When they return to the field Saturday, Camden Yards will be packed and ready for .
“The fans deserve to be here in October,” Santander said.
ALDS, Game 1
Rays/Blue Jays at Orioles
Saturday, TBA
TV: Fox or FS1
Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM
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