Here we are in the latest most important game of the year for the Orioles. Having lost the previous two games, Friday night’s game is important because they need to stop the bleeding. The Orioles have not lost more than two games in a row since right before they launched into their ten-game winning streak early in July.
This would be a bad time to get back to a three-game losing streak. The Orioles have already fumbled away an unfortunate amount of opportunity in the wild card standings. They now sit 2.5 games back of both the Blue Jays and Rays, and they’ve got to pass the Twins as well in order to seize one of those positions.