Jon Shepherd: It will take history for the O's to lose the AL East

When it comes to data scientists trying to mainstream the thoughts they have, there can be some misunderstandings. A major topic is how exactly to treat uncertainty or a relatively minimal probability. Three years ago, the Boston Red Sox led a journey starting on Sept. 3 when they reached a 99.6 percent chance of making the playoffs when Carl Crawford mashed a home run and a double, notching four RBIs, to when Carl Crawford feebly dove for a duck snort off of the bat of Oriole Robert Andino and left the BoSox out of the playoffs.

When it all began, one might have said that the wild card race was over and that the Red Sox were in. No one worth their salt in data science would truly mean that, but the absence of expressed alternative is an attempt to intensify just how unlikely it was for the Tampa Bay Rays to take away what everyone thought the Red Sox possessed. To try to think of it in more historical terms, the Red Sox falling from 99.6 percent to 0 percent was the third-worst showing in the history of baseball. The odds of that happening are 1-in-250.

Whose collapses were even less likely? The first chronologically was the "Shot Heard Round the World" 1951 Brooklyn Dodgers who fell from a 99.7 percent likelihood of making the playoffs, which is roughly a 1-in-333 chance. The second was the 1995 California Angels suffering a 1-in- 1,000 chance when they stood at a 99.9 percent chance of seeing the postseason.

On Sept. 1, the Orioles enjoyed their highest playoff probability of the year at 99.8 percent. Such a fall, roughly 1-in-500, would land this club second of the most unlikely collapses in baseball history. With the Yankees now 8 1/2 games back, it simply is almost inconceivable that the Orioles can be overtaken. If the Orioles fall apart and win only a third of their games, they will be overtaken only if the Yankees or Blue Jays win roughly 70 percent of their own. I doubt anyone looks at the rosters of either of those teams and realistically believes they have any noteworthy chance of pulling off a month like that. If they do, they still need the Orioles to be a monumental blunder.

So when you hear a data scientist say something akin to the Orioles have locked down the AL East, you should be interpreting that to mean that the chances of the Orioles disappointing you are so minimal that you should worry about something more important, such as which way do you want your ribs at Andy Nelson's (obviously, wet).

Note: The most unfortunate Orioles team was the 1989 "Why Not?" club that enjoyed an 82 percent probability of making the playoffs on July 18 of that year. It is 58^th-worst in major league history. Fruit Loops, Moose and Otter were dominant that year, but could not completely make up for a starting rotation that suffered after a decent one-two punch of Bob Milacki and Jeff Ballard.

Jon Shepherd blogs about the Orioles at Camden Depot. Follow him on Twitter: @CamdenDepot. 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.