The O's Have Learned to Fly

           Perhaps the most beautiful and nonsensical story of this season has been the play of the little birdies from Baltimore.

            Armed with the 22^nd best team batting average, the 17^th best team earned run average in the bigs, and the 23^rd best attendance in the league, the Orioles are tied with the Yankees atop the American League East.

Their team is not only absent of big names, it is riddled with guys you have probably never heard of. However, they are playing meaningful games in September for the first time since 1997.

This Jim Johnson character that has racked up 41 saves this year does not get the CY Young considerations that Cincinnati Reds closer Aroldis Chapman does. Their best hitter, Adam Jones, is a career .280 hitter. Their number three hitter, Nate McClouth, is hitting .210. Yet  for the O's, the siren song of the postseason is within earshot.

It is possible to ask how this Orioles team is hanging around while barely cracking the top 20 in the bigs in payroll (they are 19^th). Well, the Orioles either lead the big leagues, or are in the top ten, in the “Chutzpah statistics.”

The Orioles have not lost a game this season after obtaining a lead after the seventh inning. Seriously, they are 60-0 when leading after seven innings.

The O’s have the third most saves in baseball. They also have the seventh best earned run average in the majors away from Camden Yards. The “Chutzpah statistics” ,not sabermetrics, have enabled the O’s to rival the Yankees this season; all thanks to the head of the flock.

The AL manager of the year race is over. Buck Showalter has guided his Orioles to meaningful September baseball for the first time in 15 years. Anybody who thought the O’s were going anywhere this season is either a die-hard O’s fan or a liar.

Credit Robin Ventura of the White Sox for getting his team to play well to this point. Joe Girardi should get votes for holding his injury plagued Yankees together with silly string and scotch tape.

However, Ventura’s team is hitting .257 compared to the fighting Showalter’s batting average of .247. Also the White Sox are in a much weaker division than the talent riddled AL East.

As for Girardi, he will not get votes because the Yankees are expected to be in it every year; whether those expectations are fair or not. The Orioles are relevant in baseball for the first time in the new millennium thanks to Showalter.

Nobody has done more with less this season than Showalter. It has been his management skills that have propelled the Orioles to the perch they sit on today.

It makes no sense for the O’s to be here, yet that is the beauty of baseball: very little ever makes sense. While Showalter will be the only one to get accolade recognition, these dirty birds will continue to fly towards October.