It's six days later, and the Orioles still find themselves one game back in the American League East. They also have the barest of margins - that same one game - over Tampa Bay and Los Angeles in the race for the second wild card spot. Andrew is back from his adventures traversing the Northeast and we try to decide how much longer that's going to last.
Well, with many of the Orioles fellow contenders set to face seemingly-easy schedules, possibly not much longer. Andrew doesn't feel bad about this, however, because the Orioles' season is great no matter what happens from here on. Obviously, we'd like it if they continued the improbable run, but even if they slip back a little bit, they have earned what they have gotten this year. They are one of the teams in the chase, and that is for real, even if hardly anyone understands how. We talk about how the Nick Markakis injury impacts that and then unleash a good umpire rant.
From the comment box, a question about who we fear the most if the Orioles did happen to make it into the playoffs (spoiler: it's Texas), which led us on a long, philosophical rumination about all of the playoff-contending teams. Also, a question about whether the Orioles can ever sustain 30,000 fans a game on average in the future.
Then a whirlwind through the week ahead, the upcoming series against Tampa Bay, the pending west coast road trip, and how the Orioles' rotation might stand up in a short playoff series - perhaps better than you think. All this and more in this week's Camdencast.
This episode is about 1 hour and 10 minutes in length. Break 1 is at about 21:30 and break 2 is at about 40:15. Click on "Continue reading this post" below for an embedded streaming player of the episode. All you need to do is press the triangle and it will play.
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I'll be Andrew-less next time, but there will be a next time - I just don't know what it'll be quite yet. If you want to ask a question for the next show, look for the thread on Friday. In the meantime, if you have any general comments about the podcast, suggestions or feedback, please let us know. We will be back again! Thanks for listening.