The Orioles' went .500 in this instructive 10-game division swing. What did it teach us?
I spent weeks waiting for this 10-game run against the Yankees and Rays to tell us about this club one way or another. That they went 5-5, and how they did is a good snapshot of where they are.
The Orioles ended a stretch Thursday of 10 division games in impressive fashion, holding the Rays scoreless and celebrating a fantastic inside-the-park home run by Trey Mancini that made them 5-5 on either side of the All-Star break against Tampa Bay and the Yankees.
It was a stretch I believed would be one that could clarify the front office’s vantage point of the coming trade deadline, and how much the idea they presumably entered the season with – that this team wasn’t playoff bound and moving major league pieces for prospects at the deadline was the natural approach – would hold.
I also believed that they wouldn’t go .500 in this stretch, which would represent quite a come-down from the 10-game winning streak that preceded it. At first blush it seemed the clarity I and potentially many sought from this didn’t come. It’s quite possible it did.
Here are four things we learned from this stretch, and what it could mean in the coming days and months.