“17th and I don’t know how. We won it in Bilbao,” chanted Tottenham Hotspur fans.

Don’t worry, the annotations and explanations are coming. You can start one Orioles newsletter with an out-of-nowhere soccer chant to the tune of a Shakira song, but make a habit of it and they’ll probably stop asking you to write an Orioles newsletter.

It’s just that I have been, in the context of sports, unbelievably happy this last week, and because of this job and one or several undiagnosed mental disorders, have been thinking about it a lot in relation to the Orioles.

Come with me on this journey. I’m going to get us there, I promise.

Tottenham Hotspur are an English soccer team that I started following in high school, playing FIFA on Xbox in my best friend John Rossi’s basement. I picked them because I wanted a team that was good and fun but wouldn’t make me seem like a front-runner, and 20 years on, they have absolutely delivered on that, because they don’t win things.

They’re often really good and come up short when the time arrives to win a trophy. It became this whole thing. Opponents would openly talk about it, to say nothing of other teams’ fans.

And then Wednesday happened.

At the end of their worst season of my lifetime — 17th in the Premier League out of 20 teams, one spot above the relegation zone — the Spurs broke a 17-year trophy drought in winning the Europa League final in Bilbao, Spain. It’s the equivalent of the NIT when it was a bigger deal for college basketball teams that didn’t make the main tournament, but any European trophy is a massive achievement worth celebrating.

And after a year where injuries and some fundamental issues with how the team played under all-attack manager Ange Postecoglou called everything the club has been doing into question, the final and the dayslong celebration washed away months of misery.

I wasn’t prepared for how much joy it would bring me. Especially given the losing that happened around that cup run (which occurs parallel to the league season), I was guarding my heart, to say the least. The specific ways in which they were bad for most years — with injuries playing a part, but also the waning belief that Postecoglou’s positive, front-footed way of playing can work — did a number on my own belief in anything good coming from this era of Spurs.

Maybe the feeling and the vibes will be fleeting and the fundamental issues and philosophies with how the team plays will remain. But the joy of winning something has made all the hand-wringing and all the fan protests and social media uproar feel dumb in retrospect.

And in the context of this Orioles season, that’s worth pointing out.

This has been a brutal year for so many reasons, all made worse because it’s not supposed to be this way. The Orioles were supposed to be good and have been bad. I’ve already covered the part where I don’t understand how the Orioles are in the baseball equivalent of near the relegation zone, so there’s no need to belabor that. And it’s hard to avoid the general discourse about whose fault this is.

In the absence of winning — lifting-a-trophy winning — these are the things that consume your life. Unfortunately for the Orioles, there’s no in-season tournament that could make a year that already feels lost worthwhile. Either they win enough games the rest of the way and make the playoffs, or they don’t.

But say next year the health and good fortune that have eluded them over the last 18 months return and this team goes on to win something. None of this will matter, and everything will feel great. There will be no bonus points awarded for who hates the owners most or those who sentenced Mike Elias to the longest prison sentence or whose fix for the offensive approach got the most likes. There will just be joy, for everyone, and it will endure.

That idea feels particularly lost with these Orioles at the moment. I’m not saying it’s going to happen this year or any time soon. I’d just advise not closing the door on the possibility that eventually it can happen, and what happens after that washes over believers and skeptics alike.

Maybe they’ll even sing a Shakira song about it together.

Ballpark Chatter

“We all got together and had a meeting of the minds and tried to wash away what has already happened.”

— an Orioles player on the meeting held the night before Brandon Hyde was fired. 

Andy’s story on the end of Hyde’s tenure was great for a lot of reasons, but it was this part that resonated the most.

It took a while for this team to follow through on their own message, but we are seeing it a little more now that the dust has settled on the managerial change. This team spent the first month-plus of the season feeling bad for itself over its injuries and misfortunes, and while it may not be too late, the fact that they’ve stopped and things are improving feels related.

By the numbers

.520

There are quite a few things one can fairly judge Heston Kjerstad for not doing well so far this season, but he should be hitting fastballs better.

His expected slugging percentage on fastballs is .520 against his actual score of .317, and while this Orioles season has been full of far too much underperformance explained away by how it shouldn’t be that bad, this one feels right. He seems to have a lot of hard-hit outs, and deep ones, at that. I think there are some underlying issues holding him back, but misfortune is part of it, too.

On the farm

The Florida Complex League Orioles are playing some wild games down in Sarasota and the surrounding environs, with some high-ceiling hitters like Jordan Sanchez and Joshua Liranzo leading the way at the plate.

Esteban Mejia looks like he could be this year’s hot arm out of the complex, though. The 18-year-old right-hander has been up to 101 mph with his fastball and struck out five in five shutout innings Thursday to give him 13 strikeouts in 13 innings over three starts, with a 1.38 ERA and a 1.08 WHIP.

On the pod

Paul and I have been having some fantastic chats of late, including this one on the Orioles’ hitting philosophy. I think I take for granted, given I’ve been writing about it for over five years, the level of understanding about what the organization tries to do with their hitters at the minor league and major league level. Hopefully our conversation clears things up!

For further reading

🤔 Mike Elias’ response: Kyle’s column on Mike Elias’ delayed explanation of Hyde’s dismissal was a good one.

💪 Trevor Rogers’ return: Danielle’s game story from Saturday about Trevor Rogers was also great. To have the chance to write a story like that in the second game of a doubleheader makes for a long and rewarding day, I’m sure.

🤞 Can the O’s save their season? The Orioles’ path to the playoffs from this losing start is nearly unprecedented, but it cracked me up when I saw the mention of the 2005 Astros in this story on the long odds for a turnaround. That team’s rotation featured Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte and Roy Oswalt. They all finished in the top 5 in Cy Young voting that year. I am not sure any Orioles pitchers will do the same.