To the long list of beloved products both fancy and prosaic that succeed because of a secret recipe—baked beans, soft drinks (both Stateside and Scottish), fried chicken, custard tarts, gingerbread, Marmite and fernet, to name a few—you can now add the 2022 Orioles, the most unlikely playoff contender in the history of baseball.
Baltimore lost 110 games last year. With only 35 games to play, the Orioles are 67–60 and just 1 ½ games out of a wild-card spot—just three games out of the first wild card. Nothing like this turnaround has ever happened before. And to make this turnabout more amazing, if not downright quizzical, the Orioles are unspectacularly 18th in runs and 13th in ERA.
“If you look at our stats, you don’t see that we are [seven] games over .500,” says Orioles manager Brandon Hyde. “We’re middle of the road pitching. Middle to bottom hitting. We can be better than that.”
