4th in the East

4th in the East is where the O's currently stand right now. The O's did not take care of business in a very winnable series against the Rockies, and now find themselves just .001 percentage points ahead of the D-Rays for last in the East. Just looking at the loss column, only the Rangers and Royals have more losses than the O's do right now.

What is truly frustrating about the O's record, is that they aren't as bad of a team as their record shows. The number of 1 run games that the O's have lost is a sign of this. This team might not be clutch or whatever you want to call it, but they are playing a huge amount of close games, and have come up short more than their share of times. On the year the O's have scored 5 more runs than they have allowed. That should translate to a record somewhere around .500.
The teams lower than the O's in the standings are -60(Rangers), -71(Royals), -51(White Sox), and -67(Tampa Bay). Looking at those numbers, those teams should definitely be near the bottom of the AL.
On the opposite end there are teams whose run differential clearly shows that they are the better teams in the league...+80(Rex Sox), +56(Angels), +47(Indians), +67(Detroit), +51(Yankees), and +45(A's). Those 6 teams should be the one's competing for the 4 AL playoff spots with winning records. The Yankees are the only team in that bunch without a current winning record, but I don't see that staying that way for much longer. They have underachieved all year, and are likely to make their way back into the Wild Card spot.
That leaves several other teams whose run differential is somewhere near even. In addition to the O's at +5, there are +2(Twins), -1(Blue Jays), and +13(Seattle).
Minnesota and the Blue Jays are a game and 2 games below .500 respectively. That is right where they should be. The Mariners have been the opposite of the O's, in that they have won a lot of close games. Their 33-26 record has them in the Wild Card hunt early in the summer while their run differential is nowhere near as good as the other teams near the top of the standings.

Whats my point in all of this. The run differential so far this year is impressive to me for an O's team. Since 2000 the Orioles have only had one year, 2004 (+12), where they have finished the season with a positive run differential. Most of those years the O's have finished with a run differential greater than -100. It shows me that during the O's stretch of losing seasons, they truly have not deserved to be winners. That +12 differential under Lee Mazzili in 2004 is miniscule over the course of 162 games. After a run differential of -131 last season, it is a step in the right direction for the O's to turn that number around to +5 in June. However, the wins still aren't coming for the Orioles. Its as if the team has improved, but they still haven't learned how to win.