With two more losses, the Orioles will clinch their 12th consecutive sub-.500 season, the second-longest active losing streak in the majors behind only the Pittsburgh Pirates.
If the Orioles (54-80) drop 10 of their final 28 games, they will register their seventh season of 90 or more defeats in their past nine campaigns. They had lost 90 or more games only five times from the club's 1954 inception through 2000.
Yet, throughout the darkest period in team history, there has been one silver lining: The Orioles have managed to avoid the 100-loss mark in each of the past 11 seasons.
The Orioles have plummeted to 100 losses, considered the benchmark of futility, only twice in their 55-year history: the 1954 inaugural season and in 1988, when they started 0-21 on their way to a franchise-worst 107 defeats.
Given the club's current record, its brutal schedule the next few weeks and a roster lacking experience and depleted by trades and injuries, 2009 has the potential to become the first 100-loss season in Charm City in 21 years.
"It's not a number to be proud of," said veteran infielder Ty Wigginton, who played on a 101-loss Tampa Bay Devil Rays team in 2006. "But I don't see us getting to 100 this year. And, hopefully, I am not on another one of those teams."
Since 2000, 14 teams have lost 100 games or more in a season. Besides the Orioles, the Washington Nationals, Kansas City Royals and Pirates are the prime candidates to hit the dubious mark in 2009.
The Orioles are a major league-worst 14-32 since the All-Star break, a .304 winning percentage. In the second half, the club has traded its closer (George Sherrill) and cleanup hitter (Aubrey Huff), lost its most effective starter (Brad Bergesen) and lone All-Star (Adam Jones) to injuries and announced that its most promising pitching prospects (Chris Tillman and Brian Matusz) will be shut down later this month.
To make matters worse, the Orioles' next 15 games - and 19 of 28 - are against four of the five best teams, record-wise, in the American League. They will have to close the season at 9-19 to avoid 100 losses; incidentally, in their past 28 games, they went 9-19.
"Nobody wants to lose 100 games under any circumstances," Orioles president of baseball operations Andy MacPhail said. "Despite whatever our won-loss record is, this was going to be a season that had real purpose for this franchise. ... It's going to be a season that we look back on favorably to the extent that we were able to introduce nine players who are 25 and under to the major leagues and to our fans."
