Closing in on Orioles bullpen bests and blunders

With so much uncertainty engulfing the 2020 season and the world-wide impact of the coronavirus pandemic reducing the importance of playing baseball to microscopic proportions, Orioles manager Brandon Hyde isn't whittling away the hours at home wondering about his closer situation.

Mychal Givens counts as the incumbent, though he worked the seventh or eighth innings in his last five appearances. Hunter Harvey seems to be on deck for the role, though no one on the team has made him an offer. It's more of an assumption or a hunch based on his talent.

The needs on a rebuilding team are plentiful and closer isn't near the top of the list. Leads must be carried into the late innings before they can be protected.

The Orioles had an All-Star closer in Zack Britton, who went a perfect 47-for-47 in save chances in 2016 and placed fourth in Cy Young voting in the American League, before they traded him to the Yankees in the summer of 2018. Jim Johnson saved 101 games from 2012-13. George Sherrill was an All-Star in 2008. Randy Myers earned the honor in 1997, saved 45 games and placed fourth in Cy Young and Most Valuable Player voting. B.J. Ryan was an All-Star with 36 saves and 12.8 strikeouts per nine innings in 2005 before leaving for Toronto as a free agent.

Gregg Olson was the American League Rookie of the Year in 1989 and an All-Star the following summer. He had a club-record 160 saves in parts of six seasons and one of the nastiest curveballs in existence.

Tippy Martinez was an All-Star in 1983, winning nine games and logging 103 1/3 innings in 65 appearances. Stu Miller led the majors with 27 saves in 1963 at a time when closers hadn't achieved today's status.

Jorge Julio had his moments in the sun - though, I swear, he kept forcing me to rewrite game stories with his blown saves beneath the dome in St. Petersburg, Fla. Julio was third in Rookie of the Year voting in 2002 and recorded 36 saves the following year, but he also posted a 4.38 ERA and 1.524 WHIP and averaged 5.0 walks per nine innings.

Eddie Watt notched 74 saves on the great Orioles teams from 1966-73, but unfortunately, he tends to be remembered more for serving up Lee May's go-ahead, three-run homer in the eighth inning of Game 4 of the 1970 World Series. The Orioles were headed toward a sweep of the Big Red Machine before Watt replaced Jim Palmer.

There have been some good closers and a few great ones in franchise history, though often in fleeting fashion.

And then there's the 1999 season, which included a 4.91 bullpen ERA and 1.492 WHIP - numbers that would represent a vast improvement today, but were damaging to a perceived contender.

The Orioles signed Heathcliff Slocumb to a one-year, $1.1 million deal in January and released him on April 30 after he allowed seven runs to the Royals in the ninth inning and said afterward, "I felt like I had a bad game last night. Other than that, I thought I was throwing fine. It's definitely a surprise to me."

It shouldn't have been, considering that Slocumb registered a 12.46 ERA and 2.769 WHIP with a .395 average-against in 8 2/3 innings over 10 appearances. No saves.

The Orioles were 5-16 and manager Ray Miller sat on the hot seat. Miller and first-year general manager Frank Wren were fired after a 78-84 finish with an $84 million payroll.

Wren's first move as general manager had been to sign closer Mike Timlin to a four-year, $16 million contract. Timlin finished with 27 saves in 1999, but also squandered nine opportunities, lost nine games and temporarily relinquished the job to Arthur Rhodes and rookie Gabe Molina, and new GM Syd Thrift traded him to the Cardinals in 2000 as part of the great roster purge.

Timlin endured a stretch in his first season where he blew five of seven chances from May 12-June 8.

Miller reached his boiling point in April after the bullpen imploded again, the media entering his office to find the manager with his right hand wrapped in a towel and a red stain on his wall from the plate of spaghetti that he chucked. Whether he punched his chair before or after disposing of his meal wasn't determined.

Pressed about another miserable finish and tired of defending his team, Miller uttered the famous quote about how the media should go into the clubhouse and ask the players "because they're the ones making all the money."

Something along those lines. Something that infuriated them.

The Orioles rehired Miller as pitching coach during the 2004 season while reassigning Mark Wiley. Slocumb and Timlin were long gone. So was the spaghetti stain.