Orioles win AL East, exceeding expectations with unique blend of stars, survivors and castoffs: ‘They’ve learned to battle’

The Orioles entered 2023 with high expectations for themselves, but few beyond the clubhouse believed they were capable of what they achieved Thursday.

A team of rising young stars, rebuild survivors, castoffs and veterans blended together in harmony across the past six months to win the American League East on the night the ballclub also agreed to a new 30-year lease to keep the Orioles in Baltimore.

Even the team’s general manager was skeptical of this possibility, saying in December it would be “really hard to sit there and chart a course” for Baltimore to be the favorite of the daunting division. But Mike Elias did not completely dismiss it, noting “young teams pop all the time.”

Well, they popped, and so have bottles of champagne. The Orioles won the AL East, a division considered baseball’s best, for the first time since 2014 with Thursday’s 2-0 victory against the Boston Red Sox in front of an energized crowd of 27,543 at Camden Yards.

“We have the potential to win the whole thing, without a doubt,” said rookie starter Grayson Rodriguez, one of a number of former top prospects who have fueled Baltimore’s breakout. “You can ask anybody in this clubhouse, and they’d say the same thing.

“During spring training, we knew people were doubting us, that they didn’t think that we could achieve what we’re doing right now. I think that was our goal, to go out and prove everybody wrong.”

The lease announcement between the team and Maryland Stadium Authority, made with Gov. Wes Moore and Orioles Chairman and CEO John Angelos shown on the video board, removes a dark cloud hanging over the franchise. The previous deal was set to expire Dec. 31, as negotiations dragged past the Feb. 1 deadline for a five-year extension and Angelos’ self-imposed goal of July’s All-Star break.

The agreement guarantees the Orioles will remain in Charm City and at Camden Yards for at least three more decades, ending some fans’ fears about the club moving away as the Colts did in 1984. The Orioles won’t be darting off in the middle of the night this offseason, offering the possibility of more celebrations like Thursday’s.

Beyond 2014, Baltimore’s only other division title in the past 40 seasons came in 1997, which was also the last time the club secured the AL’s best record and thus home-field advantage up to at leastthe World Series.

That status also gives the Orioles a bye through the playoffs’ opening wild-card round. Baltimore will begin postseason play in Game 1 of the AL Division Series on Oct. 7 at Camden Yards.

“We’re ready,” center fielder Cedric Mullins said. “There’s a very calm demeanor about this team. Nothing gets over our heads. No moment’s too big.”

The Orioles will face the winner of the best-of-three series between the AL’s two best nondivision winners, which at the moment lines up to be an AL East matchup between the Tampa Bay Rays and Toronto Blue Jays. Baltimore won its season series with both foes, and depending on the outcome of this series with Boston to close the regular season, the Orioles could have winning records against every AL East team for the first time since 2014.

This 100-win season, Baltimore’s first since 1980, marks the greatest two-year turnaround in major league history. In 2021, the Orioles lost at least 108 times for the third straight full season.

Now, all that separates Baltimore from its first World Series berth since 1983 is seven postseason victories — three in the ALDS and four in the AL Championship series.

“We’re playing in the toughest division in sports,” fifth-year manager Brandon Hyde said earlier this week. “To lose 110 [games] two years ago and have a chance to win 100 now, that says a lot about those guys in that room. They’ve learned to battle and fight and grind and beat good teams. In just two years, to be able to do what they’re doing is amazing.”

In the offseason, the Orioles added players who were established but not stars while going a fifth straight winter without signing a free agent to a multiyear contract. This Elias-led approach resulted in Baltimore opening the season with the majors’ second-lowest payroll and, based on baseball analytics site FanGraphs’ forecasts, a 1.3% chance of winning the AL East.

With Thursday’svictory, the Orioles overcame those odds, separating themselves from a Rays team that led the division into late July.

The Orioles last made the playoffs in 2016, but that was followed by five straight losing seasons before dwindling crowds. In 2021, the last of those years, the ballclub finished with 110 losses and the AL’s worst record as the division rival Rays, Red Sox, Blue Jays and New York Yankees each won at least 91 games.

“That much losing, it wears on you,” said left-hander John Means, one of four players on the 2019 roster and Thursday’s. “To be a part of a winning clubhouse, there’s nothing like it. You just want it so bad, and to finally be here, it’s special.”

Last year, the Orioles’ rebuild showed signs of paying off as they won 83 games but finished fourth with three of those division rivals reaching the postseason.

Even though the Orioles entered this season trailing the division’s other four clubs in playoff odds and payroll, 2023 now seems poised to be the first of many years in which Baltimore contends for the top of the AL East.

As late as mid-August, all five of the division’s teams had winning records, prompting Elias to refer to the 2023 AL East as “probably the toughest division in baseball history.”

The Yankees and Red Sox, historically the division’s financial behemoths, both faded and will miss the postseason. The Blue Jays, trailing only New York’s payroll in the division, are fighting for a wild-card spot.

The Orioles were 6 1/2 games behind the Rays entering July. The Tampa Bay club opened the season 13-0, but the O’s overtook them during a head-to-head series later that month and never fell back into second place. Earlier this month, the Rays won the first two games of four at Camden Yards to tie for the division lead, but Baltimore answered with consecutive victories, walking off in the finale the same day it secured a playoff spot.

Beyond the Orioles’ clubhouse, this success was unexpected, including to — based on Elias’ offseason comments — the front office.

Rather than making high-priced offseason additions, the club planned to rely on its youth, the fresh-faced talent Elias stockpiled as Baltimore weathered a four-season stretch it largely spent as the rest of the division’s punching bag, as well as a handful of players who suffered through those campaigns. Two seasons ago, the Orioles went 1-18 against Tampa Bay, had losing streaks of 14 and 19 games and finished at the bottom of the standings to receive their second No. 1 overall draft pick in four years.

“It’s tough to get beat up,” Hyde said. “We had that long losing streak a couple years ago. All you read about or hear about was negative. That’s hard to play on a nightly basis like that. It’s hard to stay positive, and those guys did. They turned the corner last year. We have a really good mix of players — younger players, as well as the guys that have been around a little bit, and then guys who have been around nine, 10 years. But to see them turn the corner, celebrate tonight, win the AL East, we’re going to win 100-plus games — that’s a huge deal.”

The product of their first top pick, catcher Adley Rutschman, made his debut in May 2022 and sparked their turnaround, leading a youth movement that has largely inspired the club’s viral hijinks. One day this summer, Rutschman, infielder Gunnar Henderson, outfielder Colton Cowser and first baseman Ryan Mountcastle arrived at Camden Yards as “futuristic Teletubbies,” wearing color-coordinated tracksuits and narrow wraparound sunglasses.

Rutschman and Henderson were also part of a “human water fountain” act during the team’s rookie talent show in spring training that sparked the Orioles’ water-themed celebrations this season. On extra-base hits, players on base do the sprinkler dance as teammates in the dugout spray water from their mouths. That evolved into the introduction of the Homer Hose, the successor to last year’s Home Run Chain, and the creation of the Bird Bath Splash Zone in the left field stands, which allows fans to join the fun.

Those quirks surfaced in April, when Baltimore thrived while facing teams that will miss the postseason. But the Orioles continued to excel against greater challenges. They have won more games than they have lost every month of the season. They have gone 91 straight series without being swept, MLB’s longest streak since World War II. They are the only AL team with at least 50 wins in both road games and against teams with winning records.

“To go from 100 losses to 100 wins in a couple years, I think that takes a special core group of players,” rookie infielder Jordan Westburg said. “It takes a special group of management, a special group of coaches. I think, top to bottom, this organization is built on really good people, really intelligent people, really hard-working people, and I think it’s showing this year.”

A reliance on that young talent built hope for Baltimore’s future, but it also factored into external belief that legitimate contention remained a couple of years away. Instead, those inexperienced players showed the future is now.

Rutschman was one of Baltimore’s four All-Stars alongside second-year closer Félix Bautista, rookie reliever Yennier Cano and Austin Hays, who joins fellow outfielders Mullins and Anthony Santander among the handful of major league players remaining from the organization’s rebuild. In the season’s second half, Henderson emerged as a clear front-runner to be AL Rookie of the Year, and starting pitcher Kyle Bradish has established himself as a Cy Young Award candidate in his second season.

In the offseason, the Orioles supplemented their core with relatively inexpensive veterans. When they opened the season in Boston in late March, the collective salary of the Orioles’ roster was $60.9 million, ahead of only an Oakland Athletics team that has baseball’s worst record six months later.

More than a third of that salary was due to newcomers. Among their moves, the Orioles signed starting pitcher Kyle Gibson and second baseman Adam Frazier to the largest guaranteed free agent deals in Elias’ tenure, though the expenditures, totaling $18 million, still paled in comparison with those of other hopeful contenders. Trades for catcher James McCann, first baseman Ryan O’Hearn and reliever Danny Coulombe likewise cost Baltimore little, though they parted with a top 20 prospect to bring in pitcher Cole Irvin, who entered 2023 trailing only Gibson in major league starting experience despite having only two years of it.

Orioles manager Brandon Hyde on winning 100 games and becoming the American League East Division Champs. (Baltimore Sun)

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When Mullins suffered a groin strain in May, Baltimore picked up Aaron Hicks, who the Yankees released days earlier amid continued struggles, only for him to quickly prove productive with the Orioles. Three midseason pitching additions in Jack Flaherty, Shintaro Fujinami and Jacob Webb have had up-and-down tenures in Baltimore. But all of the additions have had impactful moments and games, playing key roles for a team that has thrived on depth and camaraderie.

“This division is so daunting; I never thought, ‘OK, we’ll be winning a division title in X number of years,’” Elias said. “We were focused on getting to the playoffs, just becoming relevant again, step one. But this team is so special that they brought us up a level.”

That group has fortified a roster that also has seen young talents such as Mountcastle and starters Rodriguez and Dean Kremer improve as the season has gone on. The return of Means, Baltimore’s top starting pitcher during the rebuild, has supplied a late-season boost to the rotation, and more talent has continued to arrive from the minors in the form of top prospects Westburg, DL Hall and Heston Kjerstad.

“It’s been night and day since I first got here, from every department,” said Kremer, the lone Oriole remaining from the trade that sent star infielder Manny Machado to the Los Angeles Dodgers in July 2018. “Mike and his team have done a tremendous job putting together a squad that’ll perform out on the field. I think we’re a little earlier than they had expected, but we’re here.”

As Baltimore’s phenoms get deeper into their careers, their salaries naturally will increase, driving up the Orioles’ payroll. But the future is murky in that regard. Angelos has warned the organization might not be able to afford all of its rising stars long term.

But the future wasn’t the focus Thursday. The Orioles are the AL East champions in the present — and can still become more.

Baltimore Sun reporter Jacob Calvin Meyer contributed to this article.