History is staring down at the Orioles with a deeply unfavorable eye.
Baltimore dropped Game 1 of the American League wild-card series to the Kansas City Royals on Tuesday night. Since Major League Baseball moved to the three wild-card team format, no wild-card team that’s lost Game 1 has advanced.
In 2023, all four wild-card series were over in two games, including the eventual World Series champion Texas Rangers besting the Tampa Bay Rays. Three out of four series in 2022 ended in similar fashion. Only the New York Mets stole Game 2 at home against the San Diego Padres before losing the series, 2-1.
There were however two instances in the expanded 2020 playoffs in which teams dropped the opener and recovered. The Oakland Athletics came back to beat the Chicago White Sox, as did the San Diego Padres against the St. Louis Cardinals. But recent history in the current format — even with a small sample size — favors the Royals to advance.
There’s no misunderstanding in the Orioles’ clubhouse about where they stand heading into Wednesday’s elimination game.
“At this point, it’s pretty cookie cutter,” shortstop Gunnar Henderson said. “You got to win or go home. So go out there and play your butt off. Do whatever you can to win a game.”
Added first baseman Ryan O’Hearn: “Our backs are against the wall. It’s all hands on deck with whatever we can do to win a baseball game tomorrow and live another day.”
And manager Brandon Hyde: “We’ve got to turn the page. Our backs are up against the wall and have to play well tomorrow. … I don’t think it’s a team meeting rally cry.”
Tuesday night’s pitchers’ duel — the organization’s ninth consecutive playoff loss and fourth under Hyde — didn’t inspire much confidence they’ll buck the recent wild-card trend.
Orioles bats fell silent. They spent nine innings reaching for a big hit and never found it. They were 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position, with the lone knock coming off Cedric Mullins’ bat to push Ramón Urías to third in the fifth. Urías never scored.
All of it let down a masterful outing from ace Corbin Burnes, whom the Orioles traded for in the offseason for outings like Tuesday’s. The right-hander pitched eight-plus innings with three strikeouts, allowing five hits and a run. He threw just 84 pitches in what could be his last outing in Baltimore, should the trend of wild-card series victors persist.
Wednesday is time for Zach Eflin, another righty who was acquired at the trade deadline to bolster a depleted pitching rotation. Eflin has recorded a steady 2.60 ERA in nine starts with Baltimore. He said Tuesday he was aware of a few different circumstances for the Game 2 plan but heard definitively shortly after the conclusion of Game 1.
“I think at the end of the day you treat it like any other game,” Eflin said. “Obviously knowing the circumstances behind the game. But you’ve got to be free and easy and play this game like that. So I keep telling the guys, we’re going to have some fun tomorrow and play some good baseball.”
Last year’s 101-win season ended with a three-game sweep by the Rangers that O’Hearn said felt like getting hit by a truck. The Orioles are battle-tested entering these playoffs, they say. The 2023 sting lingers, and the Orioles climbed out of a disastrous August marred by injuries.
A win Wednesday and again on Thursday — a chance at the first complete wild-card comeback since the 2022 format change — would validate their belief in the benefits of an arduous summer.
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