Monday night Orioles game thread: at Angels, 10:07

The Orioles season won’t be over if they lose on Monday night against the Angels, but if they don’t have a good outcome - at a bare minimum, 5-5 - over the ten-game west coast trip that begins tonight, that will probably be the practical end of their season.

Right now, they’re just 2.5 games out of a wild card spot. That’s not far out! But they’ll be playing two of their closest wild card competitors over the course of this trip. Somebody out of the O’s, Angels, Mariners, Rays, and Royals is going to get hot, most likely. If it’s not the Orioles, they will draw farther and farther behind.

By now, we all know the O’s haven’t been very good on the road this season. That will need to change in a hurry to stay in the race. Maybe they can get that going tonight behind Dylan Bundy out in the land of the marine layer, Anaheim, which promotes itself as being also Los Angeles but people always tell me that it’s not actually, that it would be akin to having the Baltimore Orioles of Columbia or something. Wherever they are, they’re the Angels.

Tonight’s Angels starter, J.C. Ramirez, has been the best of the pitchers who’s lasted the full season for them. He comes into tonight with a 4.09 ERA. Ramirez has been homer prone, giving up 19 in 129.2 innings - and he has a worse ERA at home than on the road. Let’s hope that’s a good sign for the O’s, otherwise anyone back on the east coast who stays up late for any part of this game is going to be cranky about it.