Don't get your hopes up

The Orioles have won 4 out of their last 6 games after losing 9 out of 10 games and have a chance to sweep the Devil Rays with a win at home tonight.

OK, so the Orioles are going to be better than the Devil Rays for a little while longer. However, the Orioles face LHP Casey Fossum tonight, who has pitched well against the Orioles in the past. So a sweep is not going to be easy. But nothing with the Orioles ever is.

Plus, sweeping the Rays would put the Orioles at only a game under .500.

And with the O's headed to Boston for 3 and facing Beckett and Schilling again, this may be the closest they get to .500 for a while.

Luckily, after the Boston series, the O's face the Blue Jays, Nationals, and Blue Jays again before facing a tough team in the A's again. So if the O's can just steal a game from that Boston series, they could set themselves up well to eclipse the .500 point during that string of games against struggling teams.

But even if they do get their heads above water during that stretch of games, how long will it be until they go under again? That is the main problem with the team. There is no consistency. They're hot and cold.

Last season, it looked like they could avoid long stretches of bad play, as the Orioles didn't have many losing streaks past 4 games. Unfortunately, they didn't have many win streaks past 3, either, which resulted in a 70-92 record. But whatever they learned in 2006, they forgot in 2007.

And the fact that we are counting down the games until they get back to .500 like we're counting down the games until they're in first place is depressing. At this point, we're only hoping for the O's to get back to mediocrity.

But at least they are playing better now. And at least they're not worse than the Devil Rays. Yet.