'There is no tomorrow': Young Orioles know the deal as Rangers put them in 2-0 ALDS hole

BALTIMORE — For a team that won an American League-best 101 games, the Baltimore Orioles are suddenly confronting an identity crisis.

Those wins now mean nothing, a fact starkly driven home by the Texas Rangers, who won the first two games of their AL Division Series, including Game 2 by an 11-8 score at Camden Yards, a result that leaves the young Orioles at a fork in the road.

Are they the squad that went this entire season – 52 series – without getting swept, and a full 91 series since being on the wrong end of the broom?

Or are they the club in which almost every prominent contributor has never tasted postseason play?

Playoff experience is typically overrated, yet in these first two games, the Orioles have not slowed the game down as well as their Texas counterparts, from the pitching mound to the manager’s chair, where three-time World Series champion Bruce Bochy remains perhaps unparalleled in pushing the postseason buttons and now has his club just one win away from the AL Championship Series.

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One day after a grinding 3-2 loss in which the Orioles never found the big hit, they followed up with a performance that may grate all winter, because they did not play well.

Make that, did not pitch well.

The Orioles walked 11 batters, one shy of the major league postseason record, and the 11 runs allowed were the most in the franchise’s playoff history. Rookie starter Grayson Rodriguez nearly pitched them out of the game, giving up five runs and walking four before Texas chased him in the second inning.

Baltimore pitching put Corey Seager in the major league record books without the Texas shortstop having to take the bat off his shoulder: They walked the dangerous Seager five times, most in postseason history, and the Rangers turned six of those 11 walks into runs.

And for the second consecutive game, the ball ended up in the hands of one of their low-leverage relievers in a crucial spot. Saturday, right-hander Jacob Webb yielded a solo homer to Josh Jung that proved to be the difference.

Sunday, he was summoned with the bases loaded in the third inning after Bryan Baker – banished to the minor leagues for the latter part of the season – walked three consecutive batters.

Webb promptly yielded a grand slam to Mitch Garver, stretching a 5-2 lead to 9-2 and testing the will of 46,475 mostly orange-clad fans at Camden Yards, who saw their team’s championship dreams dissipate as autumn’s chill seemingly moved in with each passing inning.

The details don’t matter now.

Winning three games in a row does, and that will likely come down to the Orioles leaning into the better half of their identity.

“We’ve found a way all year,” says outfielder Austin Hays, at 28 one of the senior Orioles yet, as he reminded one inquisitor, a postseason rookie himself. “A lot of come-from-behind wins, a lot of series where we lost the first couple games of the series and fought hard and finished strong.  I’m confident we can do that again.

“I just think we always have a chance, no matter what.”

Even when they pitch themselves out of one.

The Orioles exhibited their trademark fight, chipping away at 9-2 and 10-4 deficits and forcing Texas closer Jose Leclerc into the game, a largely moral victory this time of year thanks to the postseason’s frequent off days.

But Baltimore’s suboptimal performance is simply lethal against these Rangers.

With the emergence of rookie Evan Carter, Texas’ lineup is suffocating now from one through nine, with the strange exception of the No. 3 spot, a role with which Bochy continues to fiddle.

Sunday, it was Garver, making his Rangers postseason debut, and the Rangers hit the jackpot when he crushed Webb’s pitch well over the massive left field wall here.

But it’s a little easier to hit when the bases are filled with dudes who earned their way on via free passes.

“Pretty relentless attack,” says Garver. “You have to beat us in the strike zone. (Seager) is being really stubborn with pitches he likes to swing at.”

And the Orioles are not executing.

“It’s a good offense,” says Orioles manager Brandon Hyde, “but we also walked 11 of them.”

Rodriguez walked Seager in each of the first two innings, just missing on the outside corner multiple times. The caution is warranted: Seager crushed 33 home runs and led the AL with 42 doubles, even as he only played in 119 games.

But Rodriguez and the Orioles weren’t coming close enough. The game of inches becomes one of centimeters this time of year.

“They have a very good team. You’ve got to give kudos to them,” says Adley Rutschman, the Orioles’ second-year catcher. “They’ve done a great job so you’ve just got to be that much more locked.

“(Seager) is a really good hitter, so we’re trying to be careful. At the same time, we want to try to execute our game plan. It’s just a little more precise with him and thus, probably more walks.”

The Orioles are out of time, but Monday’s off day gives them a stay of any season execution. Hays looks forward to his two very young children keeping his mind clear when they arrive in the morning.

Rutschman wasn’t sure how he’d decompress.

“This is my first time doing this postseason thing,” he says, “so we’ll see.”

But Rutschman is a cagey young man of 25, more aware than he lets on that the Orioles are off tomorrow, when they play next, and probably has concocted alternate plans of attack against various Rangers.

Therein lies the irony: Nobody wins 101 games without knowing what the heck they’re doing. Yet the Orioles have yet to fully show that so far.

Time is running out. They have no choice but to win Games 3 and 4 Tuesday and Wednesday and Game 5 at home Friday, even if pitching plans for these next two contests are far from best-laid.

So be it.

“No one said it was going to be easy,” says shortstop Jorge Mateo, who dazzled with four hits in his first postseason start, through an interpreter. “We’re right here and we’re going to fight the fight and that’s all we can do right now.”

As they have all year. It’s just that the rules of engagement in October are different, and adjustments must be made, even as the Orioles hope to maintain their nearly fatalistic approach to every game.

“There is no tomorrow. I feel like that’s how our team plays, honestly,” says Hays. “That’s how we’ve played all year.

“We’re just going to play like there is no tomorrow, play with our hair on fire and win three in a row.”

And for a team just days ago in the AL’s driver’s seat, suddenly there is no choice.