Miller’s Time in Baltimore Nears Last Call

Two years ago, Ray Miller was ready to end his 34-year career in baseball. His house in Ohio was paid for, there was money in the bank and he had already groomed more than his share of young talent over two decades as a major league pitching coach.

Miller, who went 109-130 as manager of the financially strapped Minnesota Twins a decade earlier, quickly embraced the idea of guiding a team of high-paid veterans coming off two straight appearances in the AL championship series.

“I enjoy being on the spot, where everybody expects you to win. I like that, because I expect to win, too,” he said upon being hired.

These days, as the Orioles approach the end of their second straight losing season, Miller has reason to once again ponder retirement. Team owner Peter Angelos and general manager Frank Wren have declined to comment on Miller’s fate, but the manager figures he has no future in a once-proud franchise still looking for its first World Series appearance since winning it in 1983.

“It’s not up to me. I’m just going to keep working hard and see what happens,” Miller said.

He seemingly already knows. When asked recently if he figured pitcher Doug Johns had a chance to be a starter next year, Miller replied, “Well, that’s something Frank and the organization will have to decide at the beginning of spring training.”

At the start of spring training two years ago, Miller was delighted to be the man in charge of such decisions. He attacked the job and also resolved to stop smoking.

Things quickly went awry. Baltimore opened the 1998 season with a 10-2 burst, but a nine-game losing streak in May dropped the Orioles under .500 and caused Miller to once again bring out his Lucky Strikes.

He’s still puffing away.

“Ray came here with high expectations. But when you dissect the past two seasons, the ballclub did not play up to those expectations,” said bullpen coach Elrod Hendricks, who has been with the organization for 31 years. “What’s going on now isn’t fair to him. He can only put the names down. The guys have to perform.”

Not everyone sees it that way. Miller has been battered by newspaper columnists, talk-show hosts and even former players. Eric Davis, in his autobiography “Born to Play,” wrote that Miller shattered the players’ enthusiasm with an ill-conceived team meeting last season after the Orioles were bidding to get back into the playoff chase.

Davis, who also wrote that Miller ruined things by shuffling the lineup too often, concluded, “Ray is learning how to manage. ... (He) would be better off with a team of rookies. Then they could all learn at once.”

Miller was stunned that Davis would say such a thing, especially since the manager contends he and Hendricks talked Davis out of retirement after the outfielder learned he had colon cancer.

“The most crushed I’ve ever been my entire life is when the quotes came out of Eric Davis’ book,” Miller said. “Every veteran player came to me and said that it wasn’t true. He was just mad because he thinks I didn’t get us to re-sign him. He wouldn’t even look at me this spring. I went over and went, ‘Eric!’ He just turned and walked away.”

And soon, Miller may be forced to walk away from the job.

The man who developed three Cy Young winners and seven 20-game winners has been plagued for two years by bad pitching.

A strange rash of injuries to the starting rotation contributed heavily last year to a 79-83 season. This year Baltimore was 36-51 at the All-Star break, mainly because a bullpen hastily assembled by Wren over the offseason was 9-19 with a 5.89 ERA and 20 blown saves.

“Our pitching has not been strong these past two years,” Miller conceded. “Joe Torre once told me he was never considered a great manager until he got David Cone, Andy Pettitte, Mariano Rivera. Then he became a genius.

“The better the pitching, the better the manager is. I don’t begrudge anybody. The manager is responsible for the record,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if you ain’t got hitting or ain’t got pitching. If you’re the manager, that’s your responsibility.”