Andrew Stetka: Finishing with non-losing record still an underrated sight

It hit me like a ton of bricks the other day. I suppose I was caught up in the aftermath of a thrilling win that took a perfect relay throw to seal it: Michael Bourn to Manny Machado to Matt Wieters for the tag and win. It preserved Zach Britton's 44th save of the season and capped a comeback from four runs down. It also ensured that the Orioles, for a fifth straight season, won't be losers.

Last year, of course, it took winning the final five games of the season to accomplish this feat. Many won't look at reaching the .500 mark as a "feat," but after last season I felt good about how the Orioles closed. That 9-4 win over the Yankees to close out the 2015 season meant a lot. They weren't going to the playoffs, but those five wins carried a lot of weight with me, and I heard from other Orioles fans about it doing the same. After so much losing for a decade and a half, there's something about that number, 81.

When the Orioles notched their 81st win the other night, I honestly didn't even realize it at first. I've been so caught up in looking at the "games behind" column over the past month or so, that I've basically ignored the "wins" column when looking at the standings. It wasn't until hours after the game when I scrolled back through the Twitter timeline of MASN's own Roch Kubatko to read some quotes that I saw his mention of it being the 81st win. That's when it hit me that once again, the Orioles are back. I guess it still seems a bit surreal at times, even after five years now, that the Orioles have been so competitive. For all of the tough times and struggles the O's have seen this year, I try to remind myself of this constantly. It's similar to what I wrote about last week, in that, having September baseball that is real and meaningful is so great.

Like many, I lived and suffered through 14 seasons of losing baseball in Baltimore. It was a brutal time that tested the will of the fanbase. It's over now. Some thought 2012 was a fluke, but the Birds have followed it with four more seasons of competitive baseball. They may not make the playoffs every year, but they are giving themselves a chance. I have a friend from Seattle who is a big Mariners fan. We've both vented in the past about our baseball teams and the paths they've taken. They haven't been to the playoffs since 2001, the longest current streak in baseball. Only the NFL's Buffalo Bills have a longer playoff drought among the four major American pro sports. But even through Seattle's current 14-year stretch of no playoff baseball, it has had five winning seasons. Two of those seasons included 93-69 campaigns in which they didn't make the playoffs. The O's didn't reach the 81-win mark during their 14-year stretch. This doesn't make it any worse than what the Mariners are currently going through, but it just goes to show how important that 81-win mark can be. It shows how important at least being in the mix can be as well. My friend hasn't felt the anguish of 14 straight losing seasons like Orioles fans did. What he's going through right now is tough, but it's not the Orioles from 1998-2011.

The Orioles are going to fight, scratch and claw their way toward a possible playoff berth over the next two weeks. That's the main headline here. That's what's important. Getting into the field and giving yourself a shot at a World Series is all that matters for a baseball team. But for a moment, even it was brief, I took appreciation for an 81st victory as well. Maybe it's silly and perhaps I need to raise expectations for myself and the team. But that number still means something to me. I just want it to become the normal operating procedure going forward.

Andrew Stetka blogs about the Orioles for Eutaw Street Report. Follow him on Twitter: @AStetka. His thoughts on the O's appear here as part of MASNsports.com's continuing commitment to welcome guest bloggers to our little corner of cyberspace. All opinions expressed are those of the guest bloggers, who are not employed by MASNsports.com but are just as passionate about their baseball as our roster of writers.