Baltimore Orioles centerfielder Cedric Mullins is loving the progress the Orioles are making to start the 2023 season. Baltimore is off to a 14-7 start, albeit against mostly teams with a losing record. That has led some on social media to label the schedule as easy, therefore diminishing the record.

Mullins thinks the change in perception comes with increased expectations.

“It just means the expectations are higher and with continued success is just going to mean higher expectations,” Mullins said.

The Orioles have won six games in a row and 10 of their last 12. They swept the Detroit Tigers over the weekend, winning two games in the final at-bat.

“That’s 100 percent a sign of progress,” Mullins said. “Facing the Tigers, for example, we don’t take any team for granted. Last year they swept us (in Detroit). Still a major league team on the other side, so we’ve got to come out and have our best.”

The notion that an MLB team has an easier schedule than another doesn't hold as much merit as it did in years past. For the first time since the expansion of 30 teams, every team is playing each other this season.

There's a chance that every team, minus a few of the really bad ones, will have an “easier” stretch in the schedule as the Orioles had over the last two weeks. Whether they take advantage of those stretches or not separates the good teams from the bad.

Cedric Mullins and the Orioles are loving life right now. There's still so much baseball to be played, but Baltimore fans have something to be excited about for the first time in nearly a decade.