After they rattled off 101 wins in the regular season last year, the Orioles aren’t exactly surprising anybody with their first place standing here at the break in 2024. Except, actually, they are. A repeat of anything close to last year’s dominance was not universally expected from the club. This is a great team with a number of great players who are playing as good as or even better than they were expected to do and that’s helped them get where they are now.
It’s not like everything has even gone right for the Orioles. If you were worried about how the rotation would get by without John Means and Kyle Bradish, you weren’t wrong to worry.