[Baltimore Sun] Orioles’ clinch celebration brings relief, champagne and thirst for more: ‘This never gets old’
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NEW YORK — For 10 brief minutes, the Orioles’ playoff certainty hung in the balance.
They went into Tuesday night needing a win and a loss to clinch a spot in the postseason. Facing the division-rival Yankees, the Orioles took care of the former with a tight, yet clean victory on the road. The rest was out of their hands.
A loss for either the Minnesota Twins or Kansas City Royals would do. While the Royals pulled out an extra-inning victory in Washington, the Orioles retreated to their clubhouse at Yankee Stadium to find Minnesota trailing the Miami Marlins in the bottom of the ninth inning.
Clubhouse staff was way ahead of them. The entire Yankee Stadium visiting clubhouse was blanketed in plastic, leaving only carts stocked with beer and champagne exposed to the mayhem expected of a team that secured an extension of its season into October.
As manager Brandon Hyde held his postgame news conference in the hallway, the team watched on the TVs suspended above the room. Twins shortstop Carlos Correa struck out looking to end the game, and a large cheer erupted from the clubhouse. Hyde was whisked away to join his team.
With emotions pouring over through teary eyes and a couple of voice cracks, the sixth-year Orioles manager delivered a passionate speech to ignite the bottle popping.
“We talked a few days ago about 28 guys every single night,” Hyde said, looking around the room. “I’m so proud of this group. We have dealt with so much crap the last three months and you guys continue to fight. We got in, so let’s get it on. We got five more games to go, to improve, and then it’s the playoffs. Let’s go.”
Celebrations like these are unique to baseball. It’s a foreign concept in most other sports to celebrate just making it to the postseason. But the playoff-bound athletes of those professional leagues don’t experience the sheer volume of failure a baseball player must endure. In no other sport is a team that lost 70 times, like the Orioles have in this tumultuous season, getting the chance to make a run at a championship.
The Orioles have made it in. Their slate has been wiped clean.
“This never gets old,” catcher James McCann said. “One of the things I try to remind the young guys is this is really hard to do. So, enjoy every second of it. You never know when it’s going to happen again.”
For two years, the Orioles have leaned into waterworks-themed celebrations. Players signal to turn on the hose when they get a base hit. They hit the sprinkler on doubles and triples. Home runs call for all involved to chug water from the hydration station — a party-sized beer bong. An entire section of the outfield at Camden Yards has been transformed into the “Bird Bath,” where fans are hosed down by a team official nicknamed “Mr. Splash” after big plays.
In short, they had plenty of practice for Tuesday’s celebration. Players took turns pouring full cans of beer over each other’s heads. Everyone from Gunnar Henderson and Seranthony Domínguez to new president of business operations Catie Griggs made sure the hydration station served its true purpose. Matt Blood, the Orioles’ vice president of player development and domestic scouting, was so drenched he was shivering by the time he left. Colton Cowser walked around with a bright blue digital camera capturing it all.
Rookie Jackson Holliday, not yet old enough to drink, walked around with a bottle labeled, “Baby Bird Bath Water: 0.0% alcohol for Orioles under 21.”
“This is the best part,” starting pitcher Zach Eflin said. “Obviously, a long way to go, but it’s nice to celebrate and know that we’re in and have the chance to go for a World Series.”
Yet even amid the sopping-wet hugs and pungent smell of cigar smoke, the Orioles showed some restraint. This wasn’t the carefree jubilance of last year’s playoff clinch, when the culmination of a lengthy rebuild finally reached its head. The struggles of the past three months, a stretch in which the Orioles have gone 38-45 after a 49-25 start, are blinding headlights reflected in the rearview mirror. They still haven’t won a series since the first week of September.
“It’s a little different,” executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias said of this season’s clinch celebration. “Last year, winning the American League East, it was such an achievement for us. The expectations were much lower. We came into this year with higher expectations.
“But we’re going to have to fight the rest of the way. And I am hopeful that our luck kind of evens out in the playoffs, because last year we had the reverse.”
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In all likelihood, the Orioles won’t repeat as AL East champions. It would take Baltimore winning each of its final five games and New York losing out, including its last three games against the Pittsburgh Pirates this weekend. The Orioles’ path is expected to lead them to the wild-card round, where they will have to take two of three from another AL contender that believes it has more to prove in the playoffs.
But with Jordan Westburg, Ryan Mountcastle, Ramón Urías, Danny Coulombe and Jacob Webb all returning from the injured list over the past two weeks, the Orioles have faith they can once again unlock that gear that powered them to a fast start the first half of the season.
“It’s been a tough few months,” Hyde said. “Every game that we win is like this, it feels like. It just hasn’t come easy and hopefully that makes us — we’re adversity-tested. With the injuries we’ve had, with just bad luck, I feel like, a lot of nights too, we just haven’t caught a whole lot of breaks the second half and I feel like it could turn quickly.”
Baltimore Sun reporter Jacob Calvin Meyer contributed to this article.
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