You just knew this was coming. You just knew Orioles owner Peter Angelos would look for any excuse to avoid chopping down his precious oak tree.
Angelos reportedly decided in August that he would not retain manager Ray Miller. But now, the owner is said to be having second thoughts.
Why?
Because the Orioles are 19-6 in September.
Because they're two games under .500.
Because they might actually finish in third place!
Don't look now, but the Orioles are closing in on those hated Toronto Blue Jays. Don't look now, but until further notice, Miller remains manager for life.
Angelos has 72 hours after the end of the season to decide whether to exercise the option on Miller's contract. That makes the deadline a week from Wednesday, because, believe it or not, the Orioles aren't going to the playoffs.
The best guess is that Angelos will still dismiss Miller, who has failed to contend with two of the highest payrolls in major-league history.
Keeping him would widen too many rifts -- with the general manager, with the players, with the fans.
However Angelos wants to judge Miller -- from a business perspective, a baseball perspective or some combination of both -- his only rational conclusion can be that a change is necessary.
Start with the 3.5 million ticket buyers paying good money to watch an inferior product. The Orioles are terrified of alienating them and losing the huge gates that support their mammoth payrolls.
The problem is, the Orioles can't change many players for 2000, not with their roster offering little flexibility and the free-agent market little promise.
Their only fresh marketing tool might be a new manager.
It worked for the Ravens when they hired Brian Billick as coach. And it would work for the Orioles if they hired one of the top managerial candidates, be it Phil Garner, Buddy Bell or Don Baylor.
Such business concerns often influence the Orioles' decision-making, at times to the team's detriment -- part of the rationale for signing Albert Belle was his supposed box-office appeal.
But the baseball concerns with Miller are equally valid.
Who cares if the Orioles are 41-28 since the All-Star break? The season was lost when they went 36-51 in the first half and fell 12 1/2 games behind Boston for the wild card. The pressure has been off ever since.
