A losing-record playoff team is suddenly very much on the table in the 2026 MLB season, and the Baltimore Orioles are right at the center of it.
With the expanded three-wild-card format, baseball always risked this kind of conversation. The worry was simple: if enough teams hang around the middle long enough, somebody could sneak into October without even finishing above .500. That has not happened in a full season yet, but this year has a real chance to break the streak.
Right now, Baltimore holds the third wild card in the American League. At .492, the Orioles are tracking toward an 80-82 finish. That’s the kind of number that would instantly set off the usual debate about whether the postseason has become too wide open.
The AL race behind the Yankees and Red Sox is packed tightly enough to keep the door open for chaos. New York leads the pack at 69-55.
Boston sits five games back at 66-58. Then comes Baltimore at 61-63, followed by Texas at 61-64, Toronto at 61-65, Detroit at 60-64, Minnesota at 60-65, Cleveland at 60-65 and Seattle at 59-66.
The good news for the league is that this still could sort itself out. Any one of those teams could catch fire and make the whole issue disappear. If one club wins 60 percent of its remaining games, the wild-card picture changes fast.
But that kind of surge hasn’t shown up yet. The season is already 125 games deep, and none of those teams has managed to separate from the pack.
Boston, meanwhile, has gone ice cold and is only on pace for 86 wins. One bad stretch from the Red Sox, and they could get pulled into the same mess.
If it happens, it would be the first losing-record playoff team in a non-shortened season. That distinction matters.
The 2020 Astros and Brewers reached the postseason at 29-31, but that came in the 60-game COVID season. The 1981 Royals also got in at 50-53, but that strike-shortened year used a split-season format that left the 57-48 Rangers and 54-42 White Sox out.
There have been worse teams to reach the playoffs than this year’s possible Orioles, but not in a full, uninterrupted season. Last year’s 83-win Reds were already the third-worst postseason team in a non-shortened season. Before them, the 2005 Padres finished 82-80 and the 1973 Mets went 82-79, though both made it under far stricter playoff rules.
What makes this season feel different is the lack of extremes. There have been no super teams.
There have been no truly dreadful ones either. Back in 2023, MLB had three 100-win teams and three clubs that lost at least 100 games.
From 2017 through 2023, every full season produced at least three 100-win teams.
Now the sport looks more compressed. This would be the third straight season without a 100-win team, and it’s on pace to be the first since 2017 without a club finishing below 60 wins. The Angels are the worst team in baseball, but even they are tracking toward 64 wins.
That’s the landscape making the Orioles’ number look so dangerous. They’re not out front, not buried, just sitting in the middle of a crowded race with an .492 mark and a playoff spot that would come with a very awkward asterisk in the public debate.
In Other News...
Adley Rutschmans Boston Start Is Raising Questions Orioles Fans Will Notice
Adley Rutschmans move to Boston was one of the more eye-catching deadline swings, a change that sent a player the Orioles had leaned on into the middle of a Red Sox roster trying to gear up for a postseason push. Rutschman had been performing well in Baltimore and earned an All-Star selection before the deal, which is why his arrival carried so much weight on both sides of the AL East.
Since then, the early returns have been uneven, and that is the part Orioles fans will notice as much as Red Sox followers do. Boston is still waiting for Rutschman to settle in and provide the kind of offensive lift the club envisioned when it made the move, and the next stretch will go a long way toward showing whether this is just a slow start or something more concerning. [Read more 🡒]
Orioles Are Still In It As Help Nears For Playoff Push
Baltimore has managed to keep itself right in the thick of the Wild Card chase, sitting in the last spot by a half-game after stringing together six straight wins over Tampa Bay. For a club that has spent much of the summer balancing urgency with attrition, that kind of run has bought time, and it has also kept the Orioles positioned to take advantage if help starts arriving at the right moment.
There are signs that help is indeed getting closer. Chris Bassitt is back in the mix, and the Orioles have several injured pieces either returning or nearing a return as the homestand continues, giving the front office and clubhouse something tangible to lean on while the standings remain tight. For a team that does not need to pull away so much as stay attached, the next few days could matter almost as much as the last week did. [Read more 🡒]