BALTIMORE — Before Félix Bautista began playing organized baseball, as a little kid in the Dominican Republic, he’d watch the fanfare that would follow a closer entering a game and dream.
He’d dream that one day, that fanfare would be for him, entering with a game on the line. Those introductions were a large part of why Bautista picked up a baseball and decided to pitch. They led him on a path that featured a major setback, a late development and ultimately, the kind of introduction he’d long envisioned.
By the end of Bautista’s 2022 season with the Orioles, the rookie right-handed closer would take the field with floodlights flashing and Omar’s Whistle from the HBO show “The Wire” playing. He was a relatively unknown commodity last year, beginning with High-A Aberdeen, but concluded his first season in the major leagues as a closer with a dominant splitter, a triple-digit fastball and 15 saves.
