COMMENTARY : Attention Oriole Front Office: You Don’t Panic When Team Is in First

In the Orioles’ offices at Memorial Stadium Thursday they were discussing the club’s current trip.

There was considerable head-shaking, for the once high-flying O’s -- when was that, a week ago? -- had lost seven straight.

Though no one said it outright, the implication was that the Orioles looked as if they’d had it.

Finally, a positive voice was heard.

“Listen,” a man said, “we all knew this was going to be a tough road trip. If you’re going to have a slump like this, it’s better to have it now than late in the season. We’re finished for the year with the A’s and Angels and Seattle. We have a lot of home games in September. I still think we’ve got a shot.”

Not one person in the group of office workers seemed to understand what a paradoxical comment that was.

The man was insisting that the Orioles, despite their woes, still had a shot -- and as he spoke the club was still in first place by 4 1/2 games in the American League East.

That’s the kind of wacky baseball season it has been in Baltimore.

In a year when little or nothing was expected of a rebuilt young team, the O’s were shockingly good for 90 games.

Then, as the recent losing streak reached five ... six ... seven games, people were getting ready to give up on a first-place ballclub.

“That’s what everybody down here is wondering,” longtime Washington College baseball Coach Ed Athey was saying from Chestertown, Md. “They’re all asking if this is it for the Orioles.”

With the club about to play its 100th game, and with August just a weekend away, the Orioles still lead the American League East. And yet Orioles fans are asking if this is it.

A week ago, when the lead was at 7 1/2 games, some season-long skeptics decided that the Orioles were for real. And now, a mere handful of games later, some of the same people are wondering if they were too hasty in their judgment.

What’s going on, anyway?

The feeling here is that the Orioles simply overachieved for half a season, and lately they have slipped because they are playing pretty much the way we expected them to play in the first place. No one should be shocked by that.

The most dramatic change in baseball in a half-century was the introduction of divisional play 20 years ago. That, more than any other single factor, throws people off when it comes to evaluating teams.

In Baltimore now we think of the Orioles as a first-place club, which they are. We focus on the size of their lead.

First place. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

Say it often enough and it translates to the best. And yet the Orioles are not the best. They are not even the best in the American League. That’s not opinion. It’s a matter of record.

If all the American League clubs were lumped together in the standings, as they were before 1969, the Orioles would not be first. They’d be fifth.

Four American League West teams -- California, Oakland, Kansas City and Texas -- have better records. So in a way, we delude ourselves by thinking of the Orioles as a first-place team.

The Minnesota Twins won the world championship two years ago, but their regular season record was only 85-77 -- good enough to win the weak American League West that year. No wonder they failed to repeat. They weren’t that great to begin with.

The New York Mets won the National League pennant in ’73. Their regular-season record was only 82-79, but that was good enough to win their division and get them into the playoffs and, eventually, the World Series. No wonder they were wiped out in the Series by Oakland, then a truly superior team.

The day of the baseball dynasty is no more. Expansion has diluted talent. The draft has balanced the competition. And divisional play has produced some comparatively weak champions who have somehow managed to go all the way.

It is interesting to note that 10 years ago, when the Orioles won the American League East and the pennant, three other clubs in their division finished the regular season with a higher winning percentage than the first-place Orioles have now.

The Yankees that were 89-71 for a percentage of .556. Boston was 91-69 (.569). Milwaukee was only a second-place finisher at 95-66 (.590).

Back then the American League East was known as the toughest division in baseball. The West was referred to as the American League Worst. Now the West is best and the Orioles’ division is known as the American League Least.

That’s what can salvage this season for the Orioles. Their division is unbelievably weak. Of its seven teams, only the Orioles have a winning record. It’s not going to take that much to win this thing.