The final week arrives: Last chance for O's to build October momentum

Well, Captain Obvious said that losing five straight late-season series is no way to win the American League East or build momentum for the playoffs.

With the AL East now all but gone, the Orioles have one week left to get more at-bats for returning players like Jordan Westburg and Ramón Urías and innings for relievers Danny Coulombe and Jacob Webb. Grayson Rodriguez hasn't made it back yet and neither has Ryan Mountcastle, but at least he is playing in games.

In their past five series, the Orioles are 1-2 versus the Rays, Red Sox, Tigers, Giants and Tigers.

The Orioles (86-70) are six games behind the Yankees (92-64) with six to play. Their only chance at the division is to go 6-0 while New York goes 0-6.

When the Orioles won last Saturday night at Detroit, on Sept. 14, they were just two games out of first place. On Sept. 10 they were a 1/2 game behind.

On Sept. 4 the AL East standings looked like this:

Orioles 81-60
Yankees 80-60

But since then the Orioles have gone 5-10 while the Yankees are 12-4.  

We can say the Orioles gave it away or the Yankees just took it away. Both are probably true.

Repeating this comment: If the Orioles get hot in October, a lot of this will be forgotten. Yes, it's a huge if and they are not giving us any hints at doing that.

But they need to win games and build some momentum this week. The offense needs to show improvement with Urías and Westburg back.

Westburg's 108 mph RBI double tied the game 3-3 in the fifth yesterday. He is getting his timing back after going 4-for-10 with a double and homer in three games at Triple-A Norfolk leading into yesterday.

“I’m sure it can get better," he said of his timing postgame yesterday. "But I put some good at-bats together in Norfolk and I put some good ones today I thought. I don’t care what the scoreboard (and his stats) says at this point. It is what it is. I’m going to take one pitch at a time and try to help the team as much as I can. And then just trust that I’ll feel more comfortable each and every game that I get to play.”

He said it was "touching" the fans gave him such a great ovation before his first AB Sunday.

He may not have played since July 31 for the Orioles, but Westburg has remained with the team that is 28-32 in the second half while he was on the IL.

“I was here the entire time, so been around the guys, been around the team and I kind of know what we were going through. It’s tough and we have a tough stretch coming up too. The Tigers are hot right now, they’re a really good club.

“We just have to focus on what is going on in here, in this clubhouse. And nothing about what is going outside, what people are saying. What could or couldn’t happen. We just have to stay tight in here. Really focus on the chemistry this last stretch and play good baseball. And we’ll see what happens.”

Even in losing 10 of 14 and 11 of 16 games, the Orioles still lead the next wild-card teams by four games. They still have a great chance to be both a playoff team and the No. 4 AL seed. If that, they would host a best two-of-three game series next week at Oriole Park.

“Super important," Westburg said. "You saw the turnout today for the fans on a Sunday day game. They love baseball here. They love the Orioles. As a club we just want to put together a good product for the fans. Play good baseball, we want to win. And yeah, we want to get back here because I do think there is a home-field advantage aspect when we’re in Camden."

The last several weeks we kept wondering if today is the day the Orioles get rolling. Thursday's walk-off win didn't do it. Friday's five-homer game did not.

After all that has gone wrong, October is still out there for the Orioles barring a complete collapse.