Giving the Bird!

Which fits best about the Orioles? Bottom-feeders. Cellar-dwellers. Will try but will get crushed under the weight of the division. Tied for the division lead with less than a month to go. Answer? The last one. Wait...what?! Am I serious? A team with suspect pitching and an offense that yes, can club at times, can not only be keeping pace with the mighty Yankees but also coming back and jacking their way over the Yanks last night right into the division lead? I mean this makes sense if it was, say, May, but in September? What the hell happened?!
Lets take a look via some players making this happen for the Orioles:
One name: Mark Reynolds. The guy is mashing the ball against the Yanks this year. He's got 3 multi-homer games against them this year. He's the first guy since 1938 to do that to the Yanks (ESPN.com). Oh...and he hits pretty well against the rest of the league.
Adam Jones started out hot this year then cooled off significantly, but he's coming around again in the last couple weeks. But the one thing that he's never cooled off on is clutch hitting. He leads the league in go-ahead HR in the eighth inning or later with 5 of them (ESPN.com)...including the go-ahead shot last night that put the Orioles up 7-6.
Pitching.
Closer Jim Johnson has been a revelation for them. With 41 saves so far this year, he's been dominant without using the strikeout, which tends to be pretty rare among this generation's closers. In 57.1 innings pitched, hes got a 2.83 ERA and a .98 WHIP...meaning he doesn't give much of anything up in the inning that counts the most.
SP Wei-Yin Chen has been quietly solid for them in the rotation this year. He leads the teams in IP, K, and is tops on the team in starting pitchers' ERA at 3.79. While not Cy-worthy, he's been there all season for the team and just continues to go out and do business.

This week is BIG for the O's. Last night's win was the opener of a 4-game series at home against the Yanks for them. This is HUGE for a  team that really wants to prove itself; and not only that but they can put distance between them and their closest competitor in the division. They not only could make the wild card (which, at the beginning of the season would have been more that acceptable for this team) but win their division--the toughest division in baseball. If they can do their business for the rest of the season...can you say "bracket buster"? Baseball's biggest surprise team will be the playoff's biggest sleeper, and the team with nothing to lose is the most dangerous team.
And that's all I got.

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