Peter Schmuck: Inquiring minds want to know what has come over the Orioles

If you’re like me, you were getting very close to throwing in the towel when the Orioles stumbled over the beatable Rangers and Twins ahead of their current 10-game stretch against the Tampa Bay Rays and New York Yankees.

They just couldn’t get out of their own way and seemed incapable of shaking loose the offensive potential that has been stifled for three quarters of the 2026 season.

So what happens? They arrive in Florida looking like the sub-.500 club that they still are and spank the winningest team in the American League three straight times to vault into sole possession of the third wild-card playoff slot.

Are we dreaming … or humming The Who’s 1970s hit “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and waiting for reality to bite us on the backside?

There’s really no explaining their domination of the Rays. After being swept in four games at Tropicana Field in May, they have won their last six of games against them and can put an exclamation mark on the season series by completing a sweep of this four-game set tonight.

Don’t know about you, but I would have settled for a split and didn’t really think that was likely. The Rays have several of the best hitters in the game and always have solid pitching. The Orioles just traded two of their best offensive players and have their new franchise catcher on the injured list.

Oh, and they also traded solid reliever Tyler Wells to the first-place Rays two weeks ago.

It wasn’t exactly a fire sale and it didn’t exactly light a fire under the guys who remained, at least not at first. Maybe the dramatic spike in the strength of their schedule has finally delivered the wakeup call they so badly needed, or maybe Pete Alonso has hoisted the Orioles on his back just in time.

Alonso didn’t get off to the start he had hoped for after signing that huge free-agent contract to anchor the lineup, but he was still characteristically productive and hit his full stride at midseason. Now he’s on a major roll and – during this series – his teammates have come along for the ride.

Of course, we have been teased before. Their seven-game winning streak in July felt like a turning point, but just when a plus-.500 record was just a couple wins away, they slipped back far enough to leave president of baseball ops Mike Elias with little choice but to peel off four established players and acquire some building blocks for the future.

He expressed confidence after those moves that the Orioles could still compete for a playoff berth, but that optimism sounded hollow at the time and three surprising wins certainly are not enough to dramatically change the odds that remain stacked against holding that third wild-card slot.

Obviously, anything could happen with this unusual cluster of underachieving teams, but the Orioles will have to emerge from a tougher divisional schedule than most of their fellow wild-card hopefuls.

But today, they are in the playoffs.

Which is nice.