Major League Baseball has been around now for 128 seasons. During that span, 117 teams have won 100 games or more in a season. The Orioles became the 118th team to do so last night (click here.) The Braves are the only other team so far this year to have won 100 or more. (The Dodgers still have a shot at doing so if they can win two out of three this weekend.)
Last night’s win over the Red Sox was the 6th time in their franchise history that the Orioles have won 100+ games in a season. Here is some bittersweet irony for you. The O’s last won 100 games in 1980 when they finished in second place but because of the 2 division format back then and no wild card, they did not advance to post season play. Another depressing stat is that out of those 5 previous 100+ winning seasons, the O’s only won 1 World Series in 1970 over the Big Red Machine. When they Beat Philly in the 83 World Series they had “only” won 98 games during the regular season. (Interesting footnote – in that 83 season, it was the White Sox, who the Orioles defeated in the AL Championship round, that had the best record in baseball with 99 wins.)
Looking back at teams who won 100 games in a season, the O’s are also one of 6 teams to have notched 3 consecutive seasons of 100+ wins. (click here.) They did so when that went to the World Series three years in a row in 69, 70 and 71.
Speaking of World Series, the bad news is that often times the team(s) who have won the most games in the regular season (e.g. the aforementioned White Sox and the 69 and 71 O’s) , either do not make it to the Series or if they do so, end up losing. Because of the current playoff structure and baseball inside stuff about teams being built for a 162 game season and not for playoff ball, many times the team(s) with the lesser record will win out over the supposedly better team (for good article on all this (click here.)
Adding icing to the Orioles’ 100-win cake, last night’s victory enabled them to secure the AL East Divisional title which is their first since 2014. (Sure seems like it has been longer than that doesn’t it? All those terrible 100+ loss seasons that we endured I guess made it seem a lot longer.) Following the last out of last night’s game, my buddy Pat Woodburn texted me the following:
Somewhere Chuck is smiling: