With four more games against the Tampa Bay Rays this weekend, the Orioles close out their divisional slate for the first half of the season against the team that’s currently occupying last place.
Tampa Bay might not be an immediate threat to the Orioles’ division lead, but these games still matter. How teams fare within the division has had a direct correlation to playing into October in the American League East recently.
Before the Orioles visited Boston earlier this month, the peerless Alex Speier of the Boston Globe noted that since 2003, the team with the best divisional record in the AL East has made the playoffs — 11 times as the division champion and twice more as a wild card.