O’s closing in with masterful ‘penmanship

SAN FRANCISCO — Thirty-six years later, and the memory still haunts Orioles general manager Dan Duquette, who at the time was the assistant director of player development and scouting for a Brewers team that made what remains the only World Series appearance in franchise history.

Rollie Fingers had been the American League MVP and Cy Young Award winner the year before, and had 29 saves by the final days of August in 1982, only to suffer an arm injury that sidelined him for more than a year. He missed the 1982 postseason in which the Brewers rallied after losing the first two games of the best-of-five AL Championship Series with the Angels and then fell to the Cardinals in a seven-game World Series.

“If Fingers wasn’t hurt,” said Duquette, who at the time was in only his second year as a member of a big league front office. “It is not just what he did on the mound, but the feeling he gave everybody in that clubhouse. It impressed on me the importance of a bullpen for a championship team.”

In putting together the Orioles roster, Duquette has successfully created the most dependable bullpen in the AL, overseen by a manager, Buck Showalter, who Duquette feels “handles a bullpen so well. It is one of his strengths.”

And it is a prime reason the Orioles are very much a factor in the AL East. They are a half-game behind the first-place Blue Jays thanks to an 8-7 victory on Sunday afternoon capped off by Zach Britton closing out his 37th save in 37 opportunities and lowering his ERA to 0.54.

Impressive? Well, understand the Orioles were down 7-1 through five innings but came back after grinding out two runs in the seventh, a two-run home run from Mark Trumbo in the eighth and a game-deciding three-run shot from Jonathan Schoop off Giants …

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