Carl Crawford and the Red Sox Failed, but What About the Baltimore Orioles?

Epic failure is always covered with more intensity than success.

Especially in sports.

Sometimes we just expect victory from our sports franchises. Sometimes we even expect failure. But epic failure is something special for the media; it's the sports version of watching a train wreck. People can't look away.

As we get ready to enter the MLB postseason, the focus remains on the epic collapses of the Boston Red Sox and the Atlanta Braves. On TV and talk radio, all we can discuss is what went wrong for these teams. There are a few scant mentions of the St. Louis Cardinals and they're excellent play of late. There is surprisingly little discussion about how they did it while losing their ace before the season and dealing with their franchise player in his walk season.

The Red Sox defeat is naturally drawing most of the attention. Why shouldn't it?

Within the last seven years, the city of Boston has seen all four of their franchises in the four major sports win championships. Talk about expecting victory, right? The Bruins get to hang another banner from their rafters in a couple of weeks. Tom Brady is on pace to shatter the single-season passing yardage record. Yet, the sky is falling today in Beantown.

The Tampa Bay Rays aren't getting nearly the credit they deserve. They are your "Moneyball" movie, more so than any of the early 2000's Athletics teams. The Rays lost their best position player in franchise history (Carl Crawford) maybe their most proven starting pitcher (Matt Garza) and their ENTIRE BULLPEN. Their replacements were Johnny Damon, Manny Ramirez and Kyle Farnsworth. More like "Pennyball" right?

The Baltimore Orioles? They would seem to just be a footnote in history here. But what if it's more than that? In the NFL, there are observers who were not surprised by the fast start of the Buffalo Bills. Most pointed to the Bills success at the end of the previous season as a reason for not being surprised.

The reaction of the Orioles team was what caught my eye. When Robert Andino singled home Nolan Reimold, the entire Orioles team was waiting at home plate. Put the Orioles reaction on one TV screen with the Rays reaction on another right next to it. You would've thought that both teams just won the championship. Neither had. But maybe they both had accomplished one of their goals.

We all knew the Rays had the goal of making the playoffs. For the Orioles, the most commonly accepted goal was a possible .500 record and finishing no worse than 3rd in the AL East.

Not much of it went according to plan.

The Orioles rotation was supposed to be built around a crop of young pitching talent. This talent included Brian Matuz, Zach Britton, Charles Tillman and Jake Arrieta. These were highly regarded prospects. Only Britton experienced any real success this year.

The Orioles used a scatter-shot approach to fill out their roster last off season. They imported veteran players like Derek Lee, Mark Reynolds, JJ Hardy and Vlad Gurerro. Nothing to be excited about, right? The Orioles finished with 69 wins, not even coming close to 81 wins.

So why the excitement?

JJ Hardy has played great for the Orioles. Nick Markakis had a solid year. Adam Jones and Matt Wieters have started to fulfill some of their potential. Zach Britton has shown that his groundball-inducing pitching style can have success in the AL East. And the Orioles have money to burn.

But what makes me the most optimistic about the Orioles future?

Coming back in this last game to defeat Jonathan Papelbon and the Red Sox. And the way they celebrated the victory. This team played hard through 162 games. They obvious set goals to be better in September, and to play the role of spoiler vs. the Red Sox.

ORIOLES RECORD IN SEPTEMBER: 15-13

ORIOLES OPPONENTS IN SEPTEMBER:

Blue Jays (4 games) (1-4)

Rays (6 games) (3-3)

Yankees (4 games) (2-2)

Angels (3 games) (2-1)

Red Sox (7 games) (5-2)

Tigers (4 games) (2-2)

ORIOLES SEPTEMBER RECORD AFTER SEPTEMBER 6TH: 14-8

These weren't cream-puff opponents. Nor were any of these teams sitting starters when the Orioles played them.

Some will argue that September wins can mean less of a baseball team. Not in this case.

The Orioles wanted to show that they're not going to be doormats anymore. Let's back two weeks ago when the talking heads were comparing the remaining schedules for the Red Sox and Rays. All they could talk about was the fact that the Rays played the Yankees and the Red Sox played the Orioles. Therefore, it was impossible that Boston would blow this thing.

Do you think that there is any chance that Orioles manager Buck Showalter DIDN'T point this out to his ballclub? Sure the Red Sox "collapsed". But a big part of their collapse was losing five of seven September match-ups with the Orioles. When the schedules are released for next season, I can imagine a guy in the Red Sox locker room is going to say "Sweet, we place the Orioles a lot in September!"

Sorry Orioles fans, this isn't to say that your team will be ready to overtake the Yankees, Red Sox and Rays next season. But the first seed of legitimate hope was planted when you knocked the Red Sox out of the playoffs. The next step will be a perilous one. Will Orioles ownership open up the checkbook, for real? Scott Boras is going to auction Prince Fielder off the highest bidder, ala Jason Werth. With the Red Sox,Yankees and Phillies expected to sit this one out, the price tag might not be insane. That's the move the Orioles need to make. And they need to shore up their rotation. But which major league team (Not named the Phillies, Giants or Rays) doesn't?

There you have it. A seed of hope. That needs to be nurtured by sweet, sweet rain of cold, hard cash. Several of the other trees in the forest are being to wither, slowly dying of old age under the burden of monstrous contracts.

Now is the right time to be growing. And you can't start growing until the seed is planted.

Here's hoping it's some sort of magic bean seed.

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