Hope it cruel, isn't it? If you never have any, then you can't have your hope crushed. We experienced that pretty solidly for nearly 15 years. There was no hope for those teams. They were just bad. When the Orioles are good enough to be this close to a playoff spot, then they lose three straight games to the freaking Minnesota Twins in varying but painful fashion, that just sucks. Why do they suck against the Twins this year? This is the last game these two teams will play, and the Orioles are 0-6.
Pull back two of those games and win them instead and the Orioles would be in one of the wild card positions right now. Pull back four of them and win them instead and the Orioles would still have hopes for the AL East. There's no hope for the latter, and as for the former, it's fast fading. The Rangers, who've now passed the Orioles in the wild card standings, as well as the Royals, both await. It's not getting any easier from here, and they've already lost three of the easier games.
I'm just bummed about these guys right now. I do believe they're better than this, but they sure aren't showing it right now.