It felt like October, the air just crisp enough to communicate the changing calendar, fans pulling on jackets as darkness settled over the middle innings. It sounded like it, too, with tens of thousands voicing their anxious hope with each pitch.
A few days remain in September. But the Orioles look ready to play deep into October. With their 100th win of the season on Thursday, a 2–0 victory over the Red Sox, they clinched a division title and the corresponding bye for the first round of the playoffs.
It represents a remarkable turnaround for a club that spent much of the last half-decade in last place. (This is the quickest a team has ever gone from losing 110 games to winning 100—with just one season in between those two bookmarks.) And their performance this year has made it easy to forget just how recent that history of losing was. With the Orioles’ stacked lineup and dominant bullpen, they have become the winningest team in the American League, and they have every reason to look forward to the fall. Just before popping the champagne, however, Baltimore manager Brandon Hyde invited his team to look back.
