At 65-59, the Baltimore Orioles are enjoying their most successful season since the days of Chris Tillman atop the rotation and JJ Hardy at shortstop. The O's have already won more games this season than any season from 2017-21, and there's still a month to play. The roster has young talent and the farm system is excellent. Baltimore is finally on the rise.

Here, to drive home that point, are the AL East standings since the cherry-picked date of May 18:

• Baltimore Orioles: 51-35
• Toronto Blue Jays: 48-37 (2.5 GB)
• New York Yankees: 49-39 (3 GB)
• Tampa Bay Rays: 46-40 (5 GB)
• Boston Red Sox: 45-43 (7 GB)

Yes, the Orioles have the division's best record over the last three months or so. Only the Houston Astros have a better record in the American League during that time. They are 57-51, five games better than the O's. And Friday night, the Orioles and Astros, two kindred baseball spirits, open a three-game series at Minute Maid Park in Houston.

"This is what we were working for in Baltimore," Trey Mancini, who was traded from the Orioles to the Astros at the deadline, told the Washington Post earlier this month. "What you have here (in Houston) is the end result of all that."  

A decade ago the Astros were the hardest of hard tankers, losing at least 106 games every year from 2011-13. Those seasons netted them three No. 1 overall picks, plus they made shrewd trades to further stock the farm system. The tide began to turn in 2014, and in 2015 the Astros returned to the postseason. In 2017, they won a title, and Houston is often held up as the gold standard for a rebuild. (Of course, the sign-stealing cloud hangs over that era of Astros baseball.)

Ignoring the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, the Orioles lost at least 108 games every year from 2018-21, which brought them several high draft picks. They also stripped their roster down to the studs to add depth to the farm system. In 2022, the tide is turning for the O's much like it did for the Astros in 2014. A postseason spot should be the expectation in 2023, especially with the 12-team format.

The early 2010s Astros and current Orioles have more in common than philosophies. O's GM Mike Elias was the Astros' scouting director and later assistant general manager during their tanking years. Baltimore hired Elias away from Houston in Nov. 2018 and he brought some Astros personnel with him, most notably assistant general manager and analytics guru Sig Mejdal.

"Sig Mejdal is one of the most experienced and accomplished analysts working in baseball today," Elias said in a statement after hiring Mejdal a few days after joining the O's himself. "To have him join our Orioles organization is a major moment for this franchise, and I look forward to him charting the course for all of our forthcoming efforts in the analytics space."

Generally speaking, Elias and Mejdal and their staff have used the same process that turned the Astros from bottom-feeders into World Champions to rebuild the Orioles. The game is always evolving and what worked 10 years ago doesn't necessarily work now, but Astros and Orioles blueprints are similar, and there is more than a little front office overlap.