Alan Mills on joining the Orioles as bullpen coach

Teammates on an Orioles team that advanced to the American League Championship Series in 1996, Roger McDowell and Alan Mills are now reunited in Baltimore. Today, McDowell was hired as the club's pitching coach and Mills as bullpen coach.

While McDowell will have to get to know the Orioles pitchers coming from Atlanta, Mills is already quite familiar with many of them. He was the pitching coach at short-season Single-A Aberdeen from 2012-13, at Single-A Delmarva in 2014 and with Double-A Bowie the last two seasons.

"It helps tremendously," Mills said of already knowing some of the pitchers. "I've been fortunate enough in those five years to spend time in spring training with the big league team, so I know some of the guys. Most of them actually. Had an opportunity to coach a few of them in the minor leagues. When you are familiar with guys, that helps with the comfort level that they have with you and working with one another.

"Just want to say thank you. I appreciate everything the O's have done for me. I look forward to working with Buck (Showalter) and Roger. I've been actually with Buck for a long time. Since my first year of professional baseball. Never got a chance to work on the same field with him as far as him being the manager, so I really look forward to that. Just happy to be back home. I've always felt that Baltimore is my second home and I look forward to the season."

Mills, who turned 50 on Oct. 18, pitched in 474 career major league games over 12 seasons with the New York Yankees (1990-91), Orioles (1992-98, 2000-01) and Los Angeles Dodgers (1999-2000), going 39-32 with a 4.12 ERA and 15 saves. In his O's career, he went 32-21 with an ERA of 4.16 and he pitched to an ERA of 2.70 in seven career postseason games, all with Baltimore.

In two seasons with the Bowie Baysox, Mills has worked with many pitchers that either already have been in Baltimore or have a chance to impact the roster this year. A partial list of those hurlers would include Dylan Bundy, Mychal Givens, Donnie Hart, Parker Bridwell, Jason Garcia, Joe Gunkel, Chris Lee, Jayson Aquino, Stefan Crichton, David Hess, Jesus Liranzo, Tanner Scott and Jimmy Yacabonis.

Now he'll work with a talented group of bullpen hurlers in Baltimore. The O's 'pen led the AL in ERA at 3.40 this season, led by pitchers Zach Britton and Darren O'Day.

"That goes in line with what Roger has in store for the guys," Mills said. "I've worked with him. I've worked with him before but never in the course of a season. For me, it is just helping Roger get familiar with the guys as much as possible and me getting familiar with them on a daily basis.

"The things that Zach has done over the past few years speak for themselves. O'Day, the same. There are some new additions recently, but the bullpen has always been strong. (Brad) Brach had a great year this past year and they're very talented. There are some guys as well knocking on the door for an opportunity that, because of the strength of the bullpen, may not have a great opportunity. But they are there. I just look forward to working with the guys and keeping them on the track they've been on the past few years."

Now the 1996 teammates get back together on the Orioles bench. Mills said today he once used McDowell as a pitcher in a video game and then later became his teammate.

"So when I got a chance to become his teammate, I was already familiar with his stuff because I used him all the time," Mills said. "As far as a competitor, you couldn't find anybody better. I remember being a fan of his before he came over to Baltimore, watching him pitch in New York. So when he came to Baltimore, I learned a lot from him in just that short amount of time. He's been a pitching coach and pitchers have a tendency to do that anyway. They help each other and he helped me a tremendous amount in Baltimore that year."