Nearing quarter mark, first-place Orioles show no signs of slowing

5:44 PM ET

BALTIMORE — With the Preakness right around the corner at nearby Pimlico and the quarter mark of the MLB season upon us, the surprising Baltimore Orioles are still ahead of the pack.

Despite their first series loss in three weeks, the O’s — who on Thursday afternoon fell 7-2 to the Seattle Mariners in the rubber match of a three-game set — remain in first place in the American League East, tied with the Boston Red Sox.

The Orioles have shown they will be in the AL East race for the long haul. Patrick Smith/Getty Images

It’s a position that, prior to the season, nobody — at least nobody outside of the Orioles’ clubhouse — thought they’d be in. Not a week into the schedule. Not a month into the schedule. Certainly not a quarter of the way through the schedule. (Full disclosure: Technically, the Birds won’t be a quarter of the way through the season until after Friday’s game in Anaheim, but you get the idea.) Yet at every one of those checkpoints, Buck Showalter’s gang has found itself in first place.

Which begs the question: When will the Orioles — prodigious power, patchwork pitching and all — turn into a pumpkin? When will they stop outstripping expectations and start performing like the mediocre team everyone thought they’d be?

If recent history is any indication, it won’t be anytime soon.

Each of the past four seasons, right around Preakness time, when baseball had plowed through a quarter of its calendar, we already …

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