Vintage Fridays: Stu Miller, 1963 Topps #286

 

It's been a good couple of nights in Birdland. Last night Janet and I treated our unborn child (six more weeks!) to its second O's game. A rare RAIN-FREE game, to boot! After Ubaldo Jimenez did his best to send us screaming toward the exit, somehow allowing "just" five runs on 14 base runners in five-plus innings, the Orioles reacquainted themselves with the ever-adventurous Detroit bullpen. A two-run spurt in the bottom of the sixth set the stage for a fantastic five-run seventh. The Birds swatted five singles in the span of six batters, with Pedro Alvarez's single squirting under Miguel Cabrera's first baseman's mitt and into right field to score Adam Jones with the tying run. Jonathan Schoop followed with the coup de grace, a line drive into the right field corner for his first career triple, plating Chris Davis and Alvarez with the go-ahead runs. From there, it was the tried-and-true formula of O'Day in the eighth and Britton in the ninth, 7-5 final. Baby B is 2-0.

Tonight the Orioles made it six wins in a row with a 1-0 squeaker, and they're a season-best 10 games over .500 at 22-12. Chris Tillman continued his strong recent work with seven innings of five-hit, two-walk, seven-strikeout ball, and Adam Jones made a tough-luck loser out of Justin Verlander by crushing a solo homer into the Baltimore bullpen in the sixth inning. It was Adam's 200th career home run. When Tillman departed, O'Day and Britton again put up their customary zeroes in innings eight and nine. Zach's flawless ninth earned him his tenth save of the year and number 83 of his career, tying everybody's darling Jorge Julio for fifth-most in team history. Up next on the leaderboard is Stu Miller with 99, and Tippy Martinez isn't much farther ahead at 105.

Oh! And the Red Sox FINALLY lost, 7-6 to the Astros. So the O's are alone in first place again. It's better than the alternative, I'll say that.

Vintage Fridays: Stu Miller, 1965 Topps #499

The Orioles lost a couple of old friends last Sunday. Former general manager Hank Peters passed away due to complications from a stroke. He was 90 years old. Peters helmed Baltimore's front office from 1975 to 1987, overseeing the 1979 American League Champions and the 1983 World Series winning team. On his watch, the Birds drafted Cal Ripken, Mike Boddicker, and Storm Davis, among others. He also traded for Rick Dempsey, Scott McGregor, Tippy Martinez...and that was all in the same deal!

Former reliever Stu Miller also died on January 4, just nine days after his 87th birthday. The righthander started his career with the Cardinals in 1952, but spent the bulk of his career with the O's and Giants. It was with San Francisco that he committed an infamous balk in the 1961 All-Star Game. Taking the mound in the ninth inning with the National League clinging to a one-run lead, he was thrown off balance by one of the famed gusts of wind that were typical for Candlestick Park. The umpire called the balk, and Al Kaline moved to third. Kaline would tie the game a batter later, scoring on Ken Boyer's error. Miller did earn the win in the tenth inning, though. He spent the last five full seasons of his career as an Oriole, anchoring the team's bullpen with a 2.37 ERA (145 ERA+), 38 wins, and an even 100 saves. Not bad for a guy who was 35 when he got to town.

Vintage Fridays: Stu Miller, 1964 Topps #565

I'm back from the ballpark, where the O's made it out with their fourth straight win, a 4-3 squeaker over  the Astros in a brisk two and a half hours. As always, Tommy Hunter did his best to give me and 28,000-plus other fans palpitations, putting the first two runners on the corners before getting a run-scoring double play grounder and a strikeout of George Springer to nail down the save. That's a league-leading 11 saves for Hunter, but he's yet to have a 1-2-3 inning this year. It's enough to make you long for a Stu Miller type; the 5'11" veteran righty posted consecutive seasons with a sub-1.00 WHIP in 1965 and 1966 as Baltimore's relief ace. One baserunner per inning just isn't enough excitement for Tommy, I guess.

Vintage Fridays: Stu Miller, 1966 Topps #265

Stu Miller might be one of the most underrated pitchers in Orioles history, an exceptional relief ace whose career ended just as his role started to become more crucial and publicized. He was selected as Camden Chat's 19th-Greatest Oriole of All Time, and for good reason. The fact that he was 35 years old when he arrived in Baltimore in 1963, and yet made such a mark on the franchise, is telling of his sustained level of excellence. Using a deliberate windup and an array of offspeed and breaking pitches, Miller racked up 100 saves in five seasons in Charm City, not to mention 38 wins, all in relief. 14 of those wins came in 1965, almost certainly his finest season: 14-7 with career-highs of 24 saves (second in the A.L.), and a 1.89 ERA. His 0.997 WHIP was pretty nifty, too. His efforts were rewarded with a seventh-place finish in MVP voting that year.

Forty years after his retirement, Stu is still all over the team's career leader board (minimum 500 innings pitched). He ranks first in ERA (2.37), fourth in WHIP (1.12), first in hits per nine innings pitched (6.9), third in strikeouts per nine innings pitched (7.75 - behind Erik Bedard and Arthur Rhodes, incidentally), third in saves (100 - behind Gregg Olson and Tippy Martinez), sixth in strikeout-to-walk ratio (2.44), and second in adjusted ERA+ (145, where 100 is league average). Not bad work for an old man, eh?