Will Orioles Be Latest to Make Deep Run Without Postseason Power Ace?

There are many paths to a World Series win. Some teams go with a potent offense, others with a shutdown pitching staff. Some hedge their bets and opt for both.

What most championship clubs have in common is at least one stud starter, an unequivocal ace, the guy who automatically gets the ball with everything on the line.

Look at the American League playoff contenders, and it's easy to identify that guy: Jered Weaver on the Los Angeles Angels, Jon Lester on the Oakland Athletics, David Price (or Max Scherzer) on the Detroit Tigers, James Shields on the Kansas City Royals, Felix Hernandez on the Seattle Mariners.

And on the Baltimore Orioles? Well, see, about that...

The answer is probably Chris Tillman. But check out those names again. While the 26-year-old right-hander is having a fine season (3.29 ERA in 194.1 innings pitched), he doesn't yet belong among the league's elite arms.

So manager Buck Showalter doesn't have a Cy Young-caliber No. 1. What he does have is depth. And that can be equally effective.

After Tillman, the Orioles throw out Wei-Yin Chen (3.58 ERA in 173.2 IP) and Bud Norris (3.62 ERA in 159.1 IP). Not the flashiest top three, but solid.

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After that it's a scramble between Miguel Gonzalez (3.28 ERA in 148.1 IP), Kevin Gausman (3.57 ERA in 103.1 IP) and Ubaldo Jimenez (4.90 ERA in 119.1 IP).

The 30-year-old Gonzalez has had the hot hand, tossing his first career shutout Sept. 3 against the Cincinnati Reds.

Gausman, the No. 4 overall pick in the 2012 MLB draft, has the blue-chip pedigree and a fastball that touches triple digits.

Jimenez—who inked a four-year, $50 million deal with Baltimore in the offseason—was banished to the bullpen in August. But he got his first start in nearly a month Tuesday and lasted five innings while allowing two runs on two hits and striking out six in what proved to be the division clincher.

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Showalter has been mostly mum about permutations for the postseason rotation. He told CSNBaltimore.com's Rich Dubroff that he plans to juggle his starters down the stretch to get guys more rest and would say only that, "We have a lot of options."

That's a good problem to have.

The best comparison for this 2014 Orioles team might be the 2005 Chicago White Sox. Like this year's O's, the Sox had talented hurlers—Mark Buehrle, Jose Contreras, Freddy Garcia, Jon Garland, the ageless Orlando Hernandez—but no obvious ace.

The Orioles will take that parallel: The '05 White Sox swept the Houston Astros in the Fall Classic and won the franchise's first Commissioner's Trophy in 88 years.

It's been "only" 31 years since Baltimore took a collective October champagne shower. This feels like that special sort of team; one that can be greater than the sum of its parts.

They've dealt with their share of adversity, losing key contributors Matt Wieters and Manny Machado to season-ending injuries and slugger Chris Davis to a 25-game amphetamine suspension. 

Still, the O's have endured, and now they stand at the edge of glory. Together.

As The Baltimore Sun put it in a recent op-ed:

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The entire line-up contributes, and so does the whole pitching staff. It is not a team of stars—although having the Major League's best home run hitter in Nelson Cruz doesn't hurt—but a band of brothers who seem unfazed by the challenges they've faced...

"

There are many paths to the World Series. The Orioles—and their egalitarian, unheralded pitching staff—are about to find out if they're on the right one.

All statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.