Peter Schmuck: No easy road for Orioles in four-tiered playoff format

During the final weekend of the regular season, it seemed all but certain that the Orioles would be getting a too-soon rematch with the red-hot Detroit Tigers, who recently put them down in a pair of mid-September series.

That might have been fine, but the prospect of opening the three-game wild card series against Tigers ace Tarik Skubal, albeit with all three games of the wild-card round taking place at Oriole Park, seemed like it might create a bridge too far into the rest of the postseason.

Perhaps that would have been the case, since the Orioles dodged the presumptive Cy Young Award winner in both of those recent series and still lost two of three each time, but they no longer have to worry about that since the Kansas City Royals sneaked into the No. 5 playoff seed on Sunday and are in Baltimore Monday preparing for Tuesday’s Game 1.

Now, all they have to worry about is another upstart team with a very good starting rotation, which will send its left-handed ace, big-time strikeout guy Cole Ragans, to the mound in the first of a possible three straight late-afternoon games.

The Orioles don’t have a great postseason history with the Royals, who – you might remember – spoiled their 2014 postseason with a four-game sweep in the American League Championship Series, but at least they won the regular-season series against Kansas City this year (4-2).

Of course, this isn’t really going to be about who the Orioles play, but how they play. That much has been clearly illustrated over the past 2 ½ months, during which they struggled to play .500 ball until several key players returned from injuries in the past two weeks.

Suddenly, it seems like they have their early-season mojo back, as evidenced by their just-completed 5-1 road trip against the Yankees and Minnesota Twins. But winning two out of three against the Royals will require the plate discipline that made them the winningest team in the American League from April of 2023 until this year’s All-Star break.

Ragans faced them twice in April with stunningly different results. In his second start of the young season, he pitched into the seventh inning at Oriole Park and allowed just one hit in a game the Orioles rallied to win with four runs off the Royals’ bullpen. Three starts later at Kauffman Stadium, he lasted just 1 ⅓ innings in his worst outing of the season, giving up seven runs on eight hits.

Lest anyone expect the bad Cole Ragans to show up on Tuesday, he is coming off a September in which he gave up a total of three earned runs and 10 hits in four starts.

Projected Game 2 pitcher Seth Lugo also comes into the postseason on a roll after a regular season in which he won 16 games and posted a Cy Young-worthy 200-plus innings and 3.00 ERA, but he also caught the O’s at the wrong time in late April and allowed four runs on nine hits over 5 ⅓ innings in a 5-0 loss.

None of that is particularly relevant now, but the Orioles are entering the playoffs feeling pretty good about themselves. In spite of everything that went wrong over the course of the season, they still finished the regular season with the third-best record in the American League and with renewed confidence after the healthy (and successful) return of infield starters Jordan Westburg, Ryan Mountcastle and Ramón Urías

Still, the Royals present a daunting challenge with a formidable offensive lineup that features MVP candidate Bobby Witt Jr. and the veteran leadership of power-hitting catcher Salvador Perez.

Of course, no one can take anything for granted in the four-ply playoff format. The teams that survive the wild-card round will likely face larger challenges in the ensuing rounds, but the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks proved last year that the best team doesn’t necessarily win the World Series … just the one that gets hot at the right time.

That time is now and the Orioles look like their old selves again. Can’t ask for more than that.