Al East

According to baseball historian Bill Arnold, if these Orioles can win the American League East, they will have accomplished a pretty rare feat. Only nine times in modern baseball history has a team trailed in its division by 10 games or more on July 18 and come back to win the title, with the 1995 Seattle Mariners being the last club to do so (while winning a one-game playoff with the California Angels). The Orioles trailed the Yankees by 10 games on July 18 (and were a half game up on Tampa Bay Rays)

We're almost a month into the season, and it seems an appropriate time for another trip "Around the AL East. " Here's a look at a main storyline for each opponent in the Orioles' division as well as a look at who's hot and who's not on each club:   BOSTON RED SOX (16-7) I'm not about to brag, because my preseason predictions overall don't look so great . But I did go on record saying that, in the AL East, “each of the five teams could conceivably win the division - or finish last.” Many people thought the Red Sox were the team least equipped to contend for the division title, but that sure hasn't looked the case through four weeks of baseball.

There's no question that the Toronto Blue Jays have made the most noise throughout baseball this offseason - and that's pushed them from a fourth-place finish in 2012 to division favorites heading into this season. They've added three strong, veteran starting pitchers in R.A. Dickey, Josh Johnson and Mark Buehrle. They've added a perennial all-star and one of my favorite players to watch in shortstop Jose Reyes, as well as outfielder Melky Cabrera and infielder/outfielder Emilio Bonifacio to a lineup that already included Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, Brett Lawrie and Colby Rasmus.

It's obviously way too early to draw any real conclusions about the Orioles and their chances of reaching the playoffs again this season, but the schedule-makers have provided them with an immediate opportunity to measure themselves against the other four teams in the American League East. They are in the midst of a 21-game stretch that includes 15 games against their divisional rivals, which is about as front-loaded as you're going to get in baseball's new interleague-infused scheduling format.

Observations, opinions and musings from this week in Major League Baseball. The American League East gets plenty of respect. It has for years. Throughout the majors, the AL East is considered the toughest division to win because that's where baseball's big boys, the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees, reside. The criticism is that it's top-heavy, with the Orioles and the Tampa Bay Rays dragging it down for the past decade. And so the AL Central or National League West would, on occasion, be deemed the best in baseball.

- Despite Orioles manager Buck Showalter's best efforts to play down the importance of this weekend's three-game series against the New York Yankees, this is by no means your ordinary September trip to the Bronx for the Orioles. After the Orioles met for their advance meeting, something they do before the first game of every series, Showalter's words were simple. “The last thing I told them was, 'Hey, have fun, lets go,'” Showalter said. “And they will. They don't take themselves too seriously.” And then Showalter put the ball - and the Orioles' increasing playoff hopes - in the hand of perhaps his most unassuming player.

Here's another subplot in the build-up to what should be a free-for-all in the AL East this summer: Almost every team in the division can play the nobody-believed-in-us card. With the exception of maybe the Blue Jays, who generated the most offseason hype this winter, the teams in baseball's deepest division might all enter the season with a chip on their shoulder. Case in point: Yankees first baseman (and Mount St. Joe alum) Mark Teixeira suggesting that his $200 million team is embracing an underdog role this season.

NEW YORK -- Pedro Strop's success at the Orioles' set-up man is a major reason why the O's were in position to close the gap in the American League East to a single game Saturday afternoon at Yankee Stadium. Manager Buck Showalter admits that Strop's outings sometime offer “a ride,” because he has so much movement on his pitches. But the results are exemplary. He came into Saturday's game with a 1.86 ERA, fifth best among AL relievers. On Saturday, the 27-year-old Strop came so close to another late-inning hold, but instead he was front-and-center in a costly collapse in the Bronx.

TORONTO - Exactly seven weeks ago, the Orioles trailed the division-leading New York Yankees by 10 games. They were lingering just three games over .500. It appeared the O's weren't going to be able to keep pace with the powers of the American League East. Now, the Orioles wake up tied for first place with the reeling Yankees, atop of the baseball's best division in September for the first time in 15 years. The Orioles' resounding 12-0 thumping of the Toronto Blue Jays on Tuesday night at the Rogers Center - combined with the Tampa Bay Rays' 5-2 win over the Yankees - put the O's neck-and-neck with New York with 27 games remaining in the regular season.

Either April Fools' Day came two weeks late or "It's Your Call" respondents see the AL East race differently from most of the experts.Asked to pick where the supposedly improved Orioles would finish in the division this season, the majority (36 percent) said in last place. The other 286 of the 449 callers put the Orioles in first place (7 percent), second (9.5), third (13.5), fourth (10), fifth (12) and sixth (11 percent).The Cleveland Indians, of all people, garnered much support for winning the AL East title.

One of the key questions for the Orioles this season is whether their bullpen can repeat its success from 2012. Bullpens could actually be a deciding factor in a taut American League East. Hall of Fame pitcher and TBS MLB analyst Dennis Eckersley joined us for a quick Q&A the other day where we discussed bullpens and his expectations for the division. Eckersley - who also works as a studio analyst for NESN, the regional cable network that carries Red Sox games - also gave a brief scouting report of Boston's team as the Orioles begin a three-game series at Fenway Park this afternoon.

SARASOTA, Fla. - For most of the past two decades, the American League East has been considered the toughest division in baseball, primarily because it contained the sport's two financial behemoths, the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. Each year since the wild-card spot was created in 1995, one of those two has made the playoffs. Eight times in those 17 years they've done it together. Ever so slightly, though, things have been shifting in the AL East. In 2008, the low-budget Tampa Bay Rays emerged from a franchise-spanning slumber to win the division while the Yankees failed to make the playoffs for the first time since the strike-shortened 1994 season.

Not many national baseball analysts are picking the Orioles to return to the playoffs, let alone finish first in the big, bad A.L. East this season. But one prominent MLB reporter believes the Orioles will take the division. “I'm picking the Baltimore Orioles to win,” ESPN's Buster Olney said on his "Baseball Tonight" podcast . Olney, once an Orioles scribe here at The Baltimore Sun , pointed to the team's pitching depth as one of the main reasons why he likes their chances.

The Orioles made their triumphant return to the postseason in 2012. The odds of them getting back there in 2013, if you trust Baseball Prospectus' projection, are less than 5 percent . It's one of those preseason predictions that had Adam Jones saying last month that “Sometimes I wish the media would just shut the hell up. " It's not that the numbers crunchers at Baseball Prospectus hate the Orioles. It's just that much of what the O's did last year either isn't quantifiable (like deftly shuttling players up and down from the minors)

Luckily, they don't trot out the old “defense wins championship” cliché as much in baseball circles - but there's no denying there have been teams who improve their 'D' and then find increased success . So, as we continue to poke and prod at the Orioles' competition in the American League East, it's worth a quick check of how these teams have been addressing their glovework in the offseason. Jon Paul Morosi of FOXSports.com wrote this week about the propensity of John Farrell (and his third base-infielders coach Brian Butterfield)

SARSOTA, Fla. --It's split-squad day! Today marks the first of two Orioles' split-squad dates but this is the only day-night split-squad day-night double header. The Orioles travel team will board the bus from Sarasota at 8:45 a.m. and head to Tampa to face the Yankees.  I'll be providing updates from Steinbrenner Field as right-hander Jake Arrieta starts for the Orioles. Columnist Peter Schmuck will be covering the Orioles nightcap home game against the Red Sox here at Ed Smith Stadium.

Welcome to the new American League East, which isn't substantially different from the old American League East. The three-time defending division champion Toronto Blue Jays again are the team to beat, and they are looking at more of the same stiff competition that kept pressure on them into late September last year."

The American League East race has loosened up considerably the past few days, but still it remains the closest and most volatile division in baseball.The top four teams -- once separated by a half-game -- have fallen into line as the 1993 season turns for home. After last night's 7-4 win over Detroit, Toronto holds a one-game lead over New York, 1 1/2 over Boston and four over the Orioles. It wouldn't take a stretch of the imagination to put any of them into the playoffs, but things could get complicated the next few weeks.

SARASOTA, Fla. -- Adam Jones is in one of his moods and it's hard to blame him. The Orioles did what many thought would be impossible in 2012. They ended a string of 14 straight losing seasons and played all the way into October before losing a very tight American League Division Series to the New York Yankees. So why is everybody so convinced that they will stumble back to mediocrity this year? Why are the so-called experts and oddsmakers setting the bar so low when the Orioles have basically the same team back and have a chance to get much more from several key players who were injured in 2013?

Here's another subplot in the build-up to what should be a free-for-all in the AL East this summer: Almost every team in the division can play the nobody-believed-in-us card. With the exception of maybe the Blue Jays, who generated the most offseason hype this winter, the teams in baseball's deepest division might all enter the season with a chip on their shoulder. Case in point: Yankees first baseman (and Mount St. Joe alum) Mark Teixeira suggesting that his $200 million team is embracing an underdog role this season.