At 77-66, the Baltimore Orioles are 1.5 games back from a Wild Card spot. If they can make up that ground in the final 19 games of the season and make it to the postseason, it would be their second straight playoff birth after 14 years of disappointment.
Although the O’s aren’t officially eliminated in the battle for the AL East, they are currently nine games behind the first-place Boston Red Sox. So in all likelihood, if the O’s are going to make the playoffs they will have to do it through the Wild Card route.
While that’s not an awful thing—and they will be used to to the pressure, as they went that route last season—it means the Orioles might be required to play in the one-game playoff.
Here’s a preview of all the teams that the Orioles could possibly play in that Wild Card Game, or perhaps even later in the playoffs.