When the O’s embarked upon their rebuild in 2019, the first sign I looked for that the Orioles were back to being a serious team was not having a winning record or making the playoffs, but being better than the Nationals.
That mountain seemed perhaps too lofty a peak to summit when, in the first year of Baltimore’s teardown, the Nats won the World Series. But in 2022, when the O’s won 83 games and the Nationals had the worst record in baseball, it looked like Baltimore was finally passing their local rivals in the league-wide race for contention.