To rescue their season and revive their postseason hopes, the Orioles would have to do the unprecedented.

Recent postseason history has had no shortage of second-half turnarounds. The 2019 Washington Nationals won the World Series after starting 19-31, the 2022 Philadelphia Phillies fired their manager after starting 21-29 and won the NL pennant, and the 2021 Atlanta Braves had won fewer than half of their games at the All-Star break before reimagining their team at the trade deadline and winning the World Series.

The O’s would have to outdo them all.

Less than a week after firing manager Brandon Hyde, the team, which this time last year had won 60% of its games, is 16-32 and sits in the AL East’s basement — 13 games out of first place.

No team since integration has started its season as badly as the 2025 Orioles and made the postseason, according to a Banner analysis of MLB data compiled by Baseball Reference.

In that time frame, 92 teams have won a third of their games or fewer through 48 contests. They finished with an average of 59 wins — nowhere near enough to make the postseason. Only five of those teams won more than 70 games, and none made it to 80 wins.

But this year’s team has an advantage almost none of those teams had: three wildcard spots that give them more chances to make the playoffs than ever before.

How many wins do the O’s need?

Less than two months into the season, the Orioles do not control their own fate. Keeping pace with the teams ahead of them in the standings won’t be enough. To have a chance at October baseball, they will have to keep pace with some of the greatest teams ever.

FanGraphs projects that it will take about 85 wins to secure a postseason spot. That would mean the O’s need to win 69 of their remaining 114 games, a feat achieved by a group of 118 teams littered with 41 eventual pennant winners, including the world champion 1983 and 1970 Orioles.

The catch? Only six of those teams had won fewer than 40% of their games at this point in the season. And none were quite as bad as this year’s Orioles.

In the clubhouse, players are trying to take it one day at a time.

“It takes just one good month to get that going. It starts with one win. Get one win and see what happens,” shortstop Gunnar Henderson said.

Can they follow the path of the 2005 Astros?

On May 24, 2005, the Houston Astros were 15-30, 14 games behind the St. Louis Cardinals in their division. They were struggling to fill the gaps left by Jeff Kent and Carlos Beltrán — just as the Orioles are currently with Corbin Burnes and Anthony Santander — and had injuries to major players like Jeff Bagwell, who is now in the Hall of Fame.

They had other talent, but the offense wasn’t hitting — they were outscored 51-16 on a six-game losing streak in May. But the tides turned for the Astors in June. They won seven of 10 to begin the month and were back at .500 — the Orioles’ current goal — by the All-Star break. They did not make any major trades at the deadline but got healthier, Bagwell returning in September as a DH, and had a strong pitching staff led by Roger Clemens, who had a career-low 1.87 ERA in 2005.

They went an MLB-best 70-41 after June 1, earning a National League wild-card spot and advancing to the World Series, where they were swept by the Chicago White Sox.