Some Wild Card leftovers and lingering thoughts as playoffs proceed without Orioles

More baseball is being played while the Orioles regroup and think about 2025. They'll move past the crushing Wild Card loss to Kansas City but also use it to avoid feeling this way next fall.

Since we're looking back ...

* The Orioles worked backward over the last few seasons and it’s skewed perceptions that lead to some skewering of the organization. At least, that’s my theory and I’m floating it like a birthday balloon.

They unexpectedly won 83 games in 2022 after losing 110 the previous summer. Then, they jumped to 101 wins in 2023 to claim the division and earn the top seed.

This team raises bars like Jon Taffer.

Falling to 91 wins and a Wild Card hosting gig felt like a much steeper decline. They should have reversed those last two and gone from 83 to 91 to 101 and the division crown. The upward trend would have kept more fans excited and lowered the volume emanating from the “fire everybody” mob.

Again, it’s a theory. Here’s an indisputable fact: What must happen in 2025 is a seat at the head of the American League East table, which requires more than 91 wins, and a much deeper dive into the postseason. Nothing less is acceptable as the rebuild fades further into the background.

* And speaking of crowds, two non-sellouts in the postseason need to be explained. All those empty seats in the left field upper deck Wednesday with an announced attendance of 38,698. That’s obviously the smallest playoff total in Camden Yards history. The other games sold out until this series.

I don’t wanna hear about the weather, start times, kids in school, schools of fish, or anything else. Day games still drew in the past. The Wild Card isn’t good enough now? Well, that’s progress. The .500 second half killed the vibe? Was it ticket prices?

Would a Division Series have brought ‘em back?

I know that having to wait on those start times is a major complication for many working people. My wife was struggling to rearrange her meetings and find friends to accompany her. Nonetheless, the joint always was packed.

It wasn’t just the numbers. Everyone on my side of the press box noticed the lower energy level. The in-game host needing to instruct fans to wave their towels and scream, and it would cease immediately. This ain’t The Trop.

Yes, they were waiting for something to really cheer about and didn’t get it, but I’ve covered enough playoff games over the years to remember when the minutes before and after introductions sent everyone into a frenzy, let alone between innings and during the game. It was deafening.

It’s gonna get there again. Just wait till the ALCS.

Give me your theories. But there’s no need to yell.

* The Orioles brought back their rehabbing players in Sarasota for the Wild Card series. They wanted John Means, Kyle Bradish, Tyler Wells, Félix Bautista and Jorge Mateo in Baltimore.

They never said a word about misery loving company, but that’s sort of how it felt Wednesday night.

Means smiled when a reporter approached his locker to shake his hand. He appreciated the idea that, just maybe, they’d talk again in spring training. Means is a free agent, with the complication that he’s recovering from a second Tommy John procedure.

The club could offer another two-year deal like it did in May 2022, which enabled the sides to avoid arbitration but also kept him under control in 2023. He wants to pitch again.

* Bradish and Dean Kremer are close friends who train together at Push Performance Gym in Arizona. They were reunited this week and spent most of the media clubhouse availability Wednesday night talking at Kremer’s locker.

Eloy Jiménez and Livan Soto were counted among healthy players summoned in case of an injury that necessitated a quick roster change. We won’t know how the Orioles planned to replace outfielder Colton Cowser, who had his fractured left hand in a cast after being hit by a pitch. Elimination removed that decision.

Cowser swung at the pitch that crashed into his hand, causing a strikeout and the break. He provided another example, this one especially painful, that the usual organizational hitting approach faded like those pennant hopes.

The hot zone was expanded from dugout to dugout.

“The Royals, they’ve got a really good staff over there,” Cowser said. “Both of their starters threw exceptional well and the bullpen was great, too. Just one of those things, I think, and hopefully we can learn from it.”

What needs to change to prevent a repeat?

“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s early to think about that. We’ll see how the meetings go with the organization over the offseason. I definitely think that - I’ll speak personally - I definitely think there’s a lot to improve on. This year was, I’d like to think, kind of a baseline, and just looking to build.”

* Kremer was slated to start Game 3 but the Orioles didn't get there.

If the Orioles had pushed across the tying run on Wednesday, Kremer might have been used in extra innings with manager Brandon Hyde emptying the bullpen. Zach Eflin was pulled after the fourth to begin the baton passing.

The Game 3 assignment would have gone to Cade Povich, quite the do-or-die task for a rookie who made 16 starts in the regular season.

"Really impressed with how he finished," Hyde said. "I'm really excited about him. I was watching - I don't want to put this on him - but I was watching Max Fried (Wednesday) night and you see a lot of similarities. You hope that he can scratch that surface of being someone like that. Because when he was throwing 96 in Minnesota with the breaking ball and the changeup, lefty, long, there's a lot to like. So how he finished the season, he was an option."

* We might never know who would have handled the ceremonial first pitch in Game 3.

I suggested Zack Britton so he could throw a pitch in a Wild Card game.