Offense has struggled on road trip and has an AL East team thrown in the towel?

In the big picture, the Orioles began this road trip with a four-game lead atop the American League East. At worst, they will come home two games ahead.

At worst, they will have a .500 road trip against two teams that seem almost certain to make the AL playoffs and a third that is contending.

This current road trip could have gone a lot worse and the Orioles have had some 2-8 and 3-7 or worse West Coast trips over the years.

But what to make of the offense right now? Should there be any concern, or is the team just facing a real tough run of opponent starting pitchers?

Even when they face someone without the reputation of Jeff Samardzija or Felix Hernandez - like Chris Young yesterday - it seems like that pitcher is having a good year or pitching real well about the time the Orioles show up.

The O's won the games that Hernandez and Hisashi Iwakuma started, but that had more to do with their pitching than their hitting.

The Orioles have scored less during each series on this trip. They scored 14 runs in three games at Oakland, 10 in three games at Anaheim and nine in three games in Seattle.

The O's have just 17 hits and a .170 team average in the series against the Mariners. Again, maybe this is understandable considering the pitchers they faced, and they have won two of three there.

In the nine games of this trip, the Orioles have a team average of .196 on 33 runs scored. They've hit 12 doubles, 11 homers and are 13-for-46 (.283) with runners in scoring position.

The Orioles, as is to be expected, have hit some big homers on this trip: Adam Jones with his two-homer game, Chris Davis in extra innings, Delmon Young's three-run shot off Iwakuma.

But the runs have certainly not been plentiful. The O's have lost a couple of leads on this trip and are 1-3 in one-run games.

As the road trip ends today, how do you see these last three series? An overall success or reason for concern as the starting pitching has been solid but the offense sporadic?

Meanwhile, in Boston: Did one of the Orioles' AL East rivals pronounce themselves pretty much done for 2014?

With the Red Sox 10 1/2 games out beginning play Saturday, they dealt pitcher Jake Peavy to San Francisco, and other deals may be possible.

General manager Ben Cherington indicated they've turned their focus toward 2015.

"We have to be mindful of what that means with where we are, what the math says about our chances and we have to act accordingly," Cherington told reporters in a conference call on Saturday. "Whatever we do between now and then will be geared toward putting ourselves in the best possible position as quickly as possible.

"As you start marking down the days before Thursday, it does mean something. There's a reason why they call it a deadline. We have to be mindful of what that means, where we are, what the math says about our chances.

"We have to see what opportunities are out there. We wouldn't be doing our job if we didn't and if there are ways to strengthen the organization and put ourselves in a position and get a jump start on building and getting to be as good as we can and as quickly as we can, we've got to look at that."

So the Red Sox finished in last place in 2012 and may finish last in 2014. In between they won the World Series. Wonder if that is satisfying or not for their fans.