The Red Sox are why the Orioles could be historically bad instead of just bad

The Orioles are going to avoid finishing further behind in their division than any team in the history of baseball, so they’ve got that going for them. However, Baltimore still has another hurdle to clear before 2018 is over, and that’s their attempt to avoid being one of just three teams in the expansion era to win fewer than 50 games. Just the 1962 Mets (40-120) and 2003 Tigers (43-119) share that distinction now, but the O’s (46-112) could be right there with them unless they win their final four games.

There are many reasons they’re in this predicament with just four games left to go, all against the Astros, the defending World Series champions who have already clinched the AL West and won 100 games for the second year in a row. The most significant reason they’re here, though, is the Red Sox. Baltimore might have defeated Boston, 10-3, on Wednesday night, but that was just their third win of the season against the Red Sox ... in 19 attempts. The first game of Wednesday’s doubleheader, in which Boston won, 19-3, is far more representative of how their interactions have gone in 2018. And that’s why the Orioles are in line to be historically awful instead of just a regular old bad team.

The Red Sox went 16-3 against the Orioles this summer. This wasn’t just luck or close calls or anything like that, either: Boston outscored Baltimore 127-66 in those 19 games, a difference of 61 runs. The Red Sox averaged 6.7 runs per game against the Orioles, while allowing an average of just 3.5 runs: the MLB average of runs scored/allowed per game is 4.5 in 2018, so Boston managed to both hold the O’s bats in check while also running up the score compared to how the rest of the league went about their business.

There’s also this from the Boston Globe’s Alex Speier, which popped up on Twitter after Rafael Devers’ second homer of the day on Wednesday:

Now, how badly the O’s were beaten by the Red Sox in each loss doesn’t matter so much, other than that it was demoralizing and incessant. What sticks out here, and has real consequences for the Orioles, is how often the Red Sox beat them, and how much it stood out from how the rest of the AL East fared against Baltimore in 2018.

The Yankees, who have a shot at winning 100 games themselves, went 12-7 against the Orioles, outscoring them 114-80, by 34 runs. The Rays, who missed out on a wild card, might have done so because they didn’t defeat Baltimore nearly often enough: they won the season series 11-8, despite being outscored by the O’s by three runs, 112-109. Had the Rays toppled the Orioles to the degree the Red Sox did this summer, we’d still be talking about the AL wild card race heading into the final weekend of the season.

Oddly enough, the fourth-place Blue Jays are the only AL East team that came close to the dominance of the Orioles that the Red Sox did in terms of pure wins and losses, taking 14 of 19. While that didn’t help the Jays in terms of seeding or a postseason chance, their season is far more forgettable and less embarrassing because of how they handled business with the league’s worst team.

If the Red Sox had “only” taken 11 or 12 from the Orioles like the Rays and Yankees did, respectively, the Orioles would already have at least 50 wins in 2018. They could be swept by the Astros — a team they’re 0-3 against in 2018 so far, by the way — and while it would be awful in the moment, it wouldn’t register on the all-time leaderboards of awfulness in the modern game. Because the Red Sox won 84 percent of the games they faced the Orioles in this season, though, they were able to make this final season series against the Yankees meaningless in the AL East standings, while also possibly condemning the Orioles to the history books. Or Baseball Reference searches. Whichever.

So, these last four games might seem pretty meaningless for a team that has already locked up the first pick in the 2019 draft, for a team that has played for months like they were just running out the clock. They aren’t meaningless, though: just like the Tigers in 2003, who rallied at year’s end to avoid setting the MLB loss record, the Orioles have a chance to make themselves forgettable instead of historically awful. Whether they can make it work like the Tigers did is another question altogether, but hey: Baltimore defeated the team that has tortured them the most by seven runs the last time they faced off, after losing to them by 16 runs just hours before. Baseball is weird like that, and the Orioles could use some of that weirdness on their side for once.

10/25/2018 Postscript: We get it, Red Sox, the Orioles were really terrible, stop the fight