Orioles Join Unfortunate Company After Sudden End to 101-Win Season

The Baltimore Orioles' streak of not getting swept ended at the worst possible time.

A feel-good regular season, which saw the Orioles win 101 games and clinch a playoff spot for the first time since 2016, didn't translate to a lengthy postseason. The Texas Rangers completed a three-game sweep of Baltimore on Tuesday night, winning 7-1 in Game 3 of the American League Division Series (ALDS). The Orioles were outscored 21-11 across their three losses, capped by allowing three home runs to the Rangers in the season-ending defeat.

This marks the first time Baltimore has been swept since it lost three in a row to the Detroit Tigers from May 13-15, 2022. The club had gone 91 consecutive series without being swept, the third-longest such streak in MLB history.

"It's difficult. It's ironic, in a sense," Orioles center fielder Cedric Mullins said postgame. "We go the whole season without getting swept in any way, and then get swept in the postseason. It's a learning experience for all of us, a young team as a whole."

Two years after losing 110 games, Baltimore accelerated its turnaround by reaching the 100-win mark for the first time in more than 40 years (1980).

For reference, that's a year before Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr. made his big-league debut. The Orioles hadn't won more than 100 games since 1979, and the 101-win total is tied for the fourth-best in team history, dating back to 1954.

Unfortunately for the AL East champions, this is just the latest example of regular-season success failing to translate into postseason wins. The 2023 Orioles are one of 36 teams since 2000 to win 100 or more games during the regular season.

Of those teams, only five have gone on to win the World Series.

The Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Dodgers both also won 100+ games this regular season and find themselves potentially making an early playoff exit. The 104-win Braves are tied 1-1 in an NLDS series with the Philadelphia Phillies after losing to Philly in this round last year. The 100-win Dodgers trail the Arizona Diamondbacks 2-0 in the other NLDS series.

Baltimore joined the 2019 Minnesota Twins by becoming the second 100-win team in the last 23 years to be swept in their first playoff series. The Orioles are the 18th team since 2000 to win 100 or more games but fail to advance a single round in the playoffs.

"Really proud of our group," Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said. "They defied all the odds. Nobody gave us a chance. These guys played their butts off for six months. We just didn't play well for these last three, unfortunately."

The AL East had the best record of a five-team division in MLB history in 2023 and sent three teams to the postseason. The Tampa Bay Rays and Toronto Blue Jays both failed to win a game in the wild-card round. And now that Baltimore has been swept, this is the most losses without a single win by a single division in one postseason in MLB history (0-7). Per ESPN, this is also the first time since 1990 that an AL East team failed to win a playoff game.

Not to pile on Baltimore while it is down, but of the 16 previous teams in AL/NL history to reach the postseason having not been swept in a multigame series during a 162-game regular season, only one was swept in the playoffs, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

That team? The 1998 San Diego Padres, who were managed by—in a full-circle coincidence—current Rangers skipper Bruce Bochy.

The Rangers lost at the Seattle Mariners on the last day of the regular season, making them a wild-card team rather than AL West champs. Since then, Texas has won all five of its postseason games and now has reached the team's first ALCS since 2011.

"We had our work cut out going on the road against Tampa and Baltimore," Bochy said. "Just shows the toughness with this ballclub and the deal with having to fly to Tampa. Trust me, they wanted to win one more [regular-season] game in the worst way. Didn't happen....They put it behind them."