It Is Time to Start Treating the Baltimore Orioles as Serious Contenders

This article is to be a "mea culpa" of sorts. I owe one to the Baltimore Orioles.

Earlier this month, I shot a video about early-season MLB contenders that I didn't think were going to last for long, and the Orioles were the first team that sprung to mind. Their hot start had an awfully fluky feel to it, and I figured there was no way it was going to last.

Here we are, roughly three weeks later, and the O's are still atop the American League East. Furthermore, their 27-15 record is the best record in the American League. They've leapfrogged the Texas Rangers, who were labelled by some pundits as the best team since that one team "made of sliced bread."

So now is as good a time as ever to come to grips with the reality of the situation: These Orioles are not a fluke. 

I feel comfortable saying this now because the O's have shown an ability to win all types of baseball games since the calender turned to May. They've won a lot of games that they would have lost a year ago, and they've managed to keep winning despite some lackluster performances from their starting pitching.

This was the key thing I was worried about when I shot that video. At the time, the O's had a team ERA under 3.00 and a rotation ERA well below 4.00. I suggested that the O's would come back down to earth when their starting pitching came back down to earth, which was as a reasonable thing to say at the time.

As expected, Baltimore's starting pitching indeed has come back down to earth. The O's ended April with a 3.63 rotation ERA. In May, Baltimore's starting rotation has an ERA over 5.00. The only team in the American League with a worse rotation ERA this month is the Minnesota Twins, which comes as no surprise.

The Orioles have continued to win ballgames for two key reasons.

First and foremost, their offense has been clicking on all cylinders this month. The Orioles scored a grand total of 96 runs in April, and they've already scored 97 runs in May. They've made very good use of the long ball, as they already have 34 dingers this month after only hitting 30 in all of April. Adam Jones, J.J. Hardy and Nick Markakis have particularly been launching balls on a regular basis.

However, this isn't all about the long balls (which, as we all know, are dug by chicks everywhere). Baltimore's bullpen has been one of baseball's unsung stories all season long, and has been very good this month. Orioles relievers have an ERA of 2.43 in the month of May, and an ERA of 2.15 for the season.

It all adds up to a month that has seen the O's put together a record of 13-6 so far. The only team in the majors with a better record in May is the Miami Marlins.

You're probably saying the same thing that I said earlier this month: There's no way the Orioles can continue to contend without at least average starting pitching.

To that, I say this: Why not?

Great starting pitching is obviously ideal, but we've learned in recent years that great starting pitching is not necessarily a prerequisite for making the postseason. The New York Yankees are a prime example, as they've made the playoffs each of the last three years despite having mediocre starting pitching (with the exception of CC Sabathia, of course). They've compensated for their rotation woes by hitting a ton of home runs and by turning over leads to a consistently excellent bullpen.

That's kinda what the O's are doing now. In the long run, all they need to do is keep hitting the ball out of the yard and hope their bullpen doesn't get exhausted down the stretch.

The latter possibility worries me more than the first, as it's certainly not unheard for bullpens to get overworked. When it happens, a given team's playoff hopes can suffer. Just look at what happened to the Atlanta Braves last year.

Even knowing that, ESPN's assessment of Baltimore's playoff chances looks about right. The Worldwide Leader calculates that the O's have a 46 percent chance of playing baseball in October. It doesn't sound high, but only three teams in the American League have better odds.

It just so happens that two of those are in the American League East, which makes sense. We're used to the AL East being the toughest division in baseball, and it's even tougher than usual in 2012. The Orioles, Tampa Bay Rays and Toronto Blue Jays are all very strong teams; and we all know that the Yankees and Boston Red Sox aren't going to stay down forever.

But hey, the Orioles' 13-7 record in AL East play goes to show that they can hang with their division foes. If they can keep that up, there's a very good chance of them winning the division. If they don't, they could surely snag one of the two Wild Card berths.

In case you're still rolling your eyes right now, I'll remind you of this: Buck Showalter is Baltimore's manager. And this year, Showalter is doing what he invariably does whenever he takes on a new project. His projects are always a complete mess whenever he starts, but it's just a matter of time before he whips them into shape.

He did it with the Yankees, he did it with the Diamondbacks, and he did it with the Rangers. Now, he's doing it with the Orioles.

So, show the Orioles some respect. We (by which I primarily mean "I") know things now that we didn't know several weeks ago. And in a nutshell, what we know is this: These Orioles may not be the best team in the American League when all is said and done, but they're a quality team that is going to stay in the AL playoff chase all season long.

Here's hoping they start drawing some fans to witness it all.

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