There’s something strange, yet awesome, happening in Major League Baseball.
Few sports are as wacky and unpredictable as baseball — hence why we’ve had eight different World Series winners in the last eight years — and that’s how it’s always been.
From fans making massive snakes out of beer cups wrangled together from Section 201 to Dock Ellis throwing a no-hitter on LSD to Vladamir Guerrero Jr. posting eerily identical stats as his father, baseball is full of oddball moments, perplexing numbers and unusual happenings.
This year is no different.
Right now, we’re witnessing a pair of hot streaks that hasn’t happened like this since … well, ever.
On July 13, MLB saw two teams earn victories and extend their winning streaks to 10 games: the Baltimore Orioles and the Seattle Mariners.
You read that right.
Two sub-.500 franchises — the O’s having been 35-44 just before their streak began and the Mariners having been 37-42 — went on identical winning streaks that somehow hit the 10-game mark on the same day (July 13), each of which have resulted in that team reaching a .500 record or better.
Thanks to a well-written and well-researched column by The Athletic’s Jayson Stark published last week — which is worth the weird, wild and wonderful read — I discovered that this is, indeed, the first time two sub-.500 teams have done that at the same time (besides the first week of the season) in MLB history.
Besides all of the similarities that the two streaks possessed, the fact that these streaks have existed at all, even separate from one another, is baffling.
Let’s start with the Orioles.
I’ve been an O’s fan since the early Buck Showalter era.
Early in my Orioles fandom, I was blessed to see young stars like Manny Machado and Jonathan Schoop, along with older veterans like J.J. Hardy and Adam Jones, grace the field at Oriole Park at Camden Yards (OPACY, for short) in Baltimore.
In 2014, the O’s made it all the way to the ALCS in one of the most thrilling seasons in decades for the franchise. (They ultimately lost to the Kansas City Royals.)
Since then, however, there’s been a whole lot of mediocrity occupying OPACY.
In the seven seasons since 2014, the Orioles have posted just one season above .500 — along with another, 2015, right at .500 — and have been toward the bottom of the AL East every year, with their highest finish being third place in both 2015 and 2016.
Their record over the last seven seasons? 423-609.
That’s the worst record in MLB over that span.
Over the last three seasons, however, the O’s have been historically bad.
According to Stark, from 2018-21 — excluding the COVID-shortened 2020 season — the O’s were a whopping 180 games under .500, joining a club of only six other teams in major league history to hit a mark that astounding.
So, fast forward to 2022, when Baltimore took its 35-47 record and rattled off 10 consecutive victories — sweeping the Texas Rangers, Los Angeles Angels and Chicago Cubs in the process — to find its head above water at the halfway point of the season. It was the first time the franchise had a 10-game winning streak since Sept. 1999.
The Orioles’ streak ended just two days after hitting its 10th entry, having dropped two out of three games to the Tampa Bay Rays just before the All-Star break to fall back to .500 at 46-46, but the fact that it happened at all still leaves me speechless.
Since calling up former No. 1 overall pick Adley Rutschman on May 21 — one of my personal highlights of the year — the O’s are 30-22, the eighth-best record in MLB over that span.
While I’m in no position to try to explain how or why the O’s have been on a tear — perhaps one of the players found a lucky penny lying heads-up on Eutaw Street? — I can safely say that this is the most fun I’ve had as a fan in a long time.
Mariners fans, however, might have me beat on the optimism scale.
By now, most people are aware of the elephant in the room, one that’s been following the Mariners around for over two decades:
They haven’t made the playoffs in 20 seasons, the longest postseason drought in North American pro sports.
As has seemingly happened plenty of times during that unfathomable streak, the Mariners had a shot on the final day of the season last year … but, as luck would have it, both the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox earned wins in Game 162 that eliminated Seattle for the 20th straight year.
This season, though, the Mariners seem determined to climb out of the pool of embarrassment they’ve been treading in since George W. Bush was in office.
Cue the streak.
As of publication, Seattle is in the midst of a 14-game winning streak that it took into the All-Star break, having lost just one game in all of July (a 3-1 loss on July 1 to the Oakland Athletics) and swept four-straight series against the San Diego Padres, Toronto Blue Jays, Washington Nationals and Rangers.
Just like the O’s streak, this is a historic run for the Mariners, marking the second-longest win streak in franchise history (15 games, 2001).
It’s a streak that’s been fueled by 21-year-old rookie All-Star Julio Rodriguez — who nearly won the MLB Home Run Derby on Monday, falling just short in the Finals against Nationals’ slugger Juan Soto — and a boatload of sheer momentum.
When the Mariners began their victorious spell, they were five games under .500. Now, they’re nine games over .500 at 51-42 and are in sole possession of the No. 2 wild card spot in the American League, just a half-game back of the Rays for the top wild card position.
It’s still yet to be seen whether or not Baltimore and Seattle’s recent success will last (or lead to postseason berths), but one thing’s for certain.
The teams that have acted as the doormats of baseball for years might not be the doormats any longer.
Reporter Victor Hensley can be reached at vhensley@chathamnr.com or on Twitter at @Frezeal33.