Notes on the AL East, O's hot hitters and more

With the Orioles' win on Wednesday in New York, the American League East champion has won 95 or more games for 14 consecutive seasons, dating back to 2001. No other division comes even close to that. On another note, this year will be the first time since 1993 that neither the Yankees or Red Sox will be in the postseason. That will come as music to the ears of some Orioles fans. As we get into next week, and the national media begins to focus solely on the playoff teams, some may portray the Orioles' AL East championship as won in a year the division is down. But if you look at winning percentage by division, the opposite is true, and the AL East ranks first in baseball: .508 - AL East .507 - AL West .504 - NL Central .501 - AL Central .498 - NL East .481 - NL West With four games now left in the regular season a few Orioles are heating up at the plate while others are slumping. Nelson Cruz is definitely in the first category. The 2014 Most Valuable Oriole is 7-for-10 over his last two games. Over his last 24 games, Cruz is batting .378 with eight doubles, a triple, six homers and 20 RBIs. Cruz is slugging .649 with an OPS of 1.069 this month. Nick Markakis, after missing several games with a sore shoulder, is 5-for-8 with a homer and five RBIs over the last two games. That is his most RBIs this year in back-to-back games. Those are two pretty good players to get going at bat. Adam Jones added two hits yesterday after a 2-for-22 stretch. Now Steve Pearce is back and before he missed time with a wrist injury he had a red-hot bat. On the other end of things are catcher Caleb Joseph and second baseman Jonathan Schoop. They have a combined four hits over their last 72 at-bats with Joseph 0-for-25 in his last eight games and Schoop 4-for-47 over 17 games. Manager Buck Showalter might be torn between resting those two to freshen them up or playing them since you can't get any hits on the bench. Schoop has not started the last two games. Also, Alejandro De Aza is 2-for-16 after a fast start with the Orioles and J.J. Hardy is 5-for-35 his last nine games. There is also the matter of which player or players will start at third base in the postseason? Will it be Ryan Flaherty, Kelly Johnson, Jimmy Paredes or some combination of the three? Can the O's risk Paredes and his inconsistent glove and arm out there? For what it's worth, the Orioles are 6-0 when Johnson has started at third, 8-3 with Paredes and 15-11 with Flaherty. If the O's do go with an 11-man pitching staff for the American League Division Series that should allow the Orioles to keep all three on the postseason roster. I would guess David Lough gets the final spot over Quintin Berry. A pinch runner would be a luxury, but Lough can pinch run and he's played too well down the stretch to be excluded from that first series. Meanwhile, the Detroit Tigers (88-70) have now opened a two-game lead on Kansas City atop the AL Central and have a magic number of three to clinch the division. They are the O's most likely opponent in the ALDS. Fans keep asking when we will know the game times for the ALDS. Nothing will be set by MLB and the TV networks at least until they know the matchups. I will guess that we don't get that information until Monday or possibly Sunday night at the earliest. There will be two ALDS games next Thursday and I would assume one gets a primetime start while the other could potentially be a 3 or 4 p.m first pitch. The next day, Friday Oct. 3, all four LDS series will be played. So there will probably be games all day beginning around 1 p.m.