O('s) my goodness

 ( No!" you're saying. "Not more cheesy whining about your stupid Pirates again!")

Well ... not entirely.

I mean, as the All-Star break comes, my Cruds are NOT as Cruddy as usual. They're not even in their ancestral home in last place in the NL Central. Heck, they're not even in NEXT to last place.

That's because the Reds and the Cubs are the real Cruds of the division, two of the worst four teams in baseball. My Cruds, on the other hand, are just serviceably Cruddy. 

But enough about that. ("Finally!" you're saying).

You know who's NOT cruddy right now, comparatively speaking?

No, not the Yankees. Shut up.

The Orioles!

The O-Nos just won ten straight games, and, no, I'm not making that up. They are not yet 100 games out of first. They're not even ten bazillion games below .500.

Why, right now -- right this very minute, at 8:08 a.m. on July 17 -- they're 46-45, which according to the Blob's math means they're actually one game ABOVE .500. And this after losing 110 games last season and finishing 48 games out of first.

Oh, they're still in last in the AL East, and they're still 17 games out of first, but that's because that Y Team From New York is 63-28 and 13 games ahead of even the second-place team in the East. But with 46 wins, they're already within six of their win total for all of last season (52). At the All-Star break.

So here's to the Birds, who for once are not for the birds. Long may their one-game-above-.500 flag wave.

As for the Cubs and the Reds, you are a civic embarrassment. An embarrassment, I say.