Neither team is buried. Both are still mentioned in the same breath as the final AL wild-card spot, which is what makes a three-day-out preview like this one worth circling back to — the board and the pitching plans will both look different by Friday night.
Baltimore's form card tells the real version of the last week: this is a team that got run over by Boston and then found a way to snap out of it. The Orioles won their last game before this preview was written, a bounce-back that matters more given how the stretch before it went.
Toronto's injury list is the longer one, and it's concentrated almost entirely in the rotation — six pitchers on multi-week or season-ending timelines is not a normal August-into-September problem, it's a depth chart that's been rebuilt on the fly since May. Anthony Santander at least gives them a lineup piece to look forward to; he's ticketed for a Triple-A rehab assignment, which is a real data point for a team that's needed offense.
Whatever arms both sides settle on, this is a game two clubs playing for their playoff lives will treat like it matters — which, with four days of baseball for each of them still to be played first, is about as much as anyone can honestly say about it right now.