The process usually starts somewhere around the fourth inning. Orioles manager Sam Perlozzo will be advised of his starter's mounting pitch count and begin mapping out how he'll use his bullpen the rest of the game.
On most nights this season, the answers have been few and the anxiety has been plenty.
"If you look to your pitching coach or your bench coach and say, `Who do you like?' and you get no answer - really your stomach is in a knot," Perlozzo said. "You're going to have to try to figure out how to do it. When you get guys that can't do that, you end up with one-inning [stints] with all your [relievers]. Before long, you're wearing them out every night trying to get one win"
If there's anything that has consumed the Orioles' rookie manager, that has tested both his patience and his imagination, it has been the club's much-maligned bullpen, statistically the worst in the American League and the second worst in the major leagues.
Even after Orioles relievers carded 4 1/3 scoreless innings Wednesday night against Texas, a stretch that ended when John Halama served up a walk-off home run to Mark DeRosa in the 12th inning, the bullpen's ERA was a robust 6.08 before last night, better than only the relief corps of the San Francisco Giants.
The Orioles' bullpen is also last in the league in WHIP, the ratio of walks and hits to innings pitched, and has the worst strikeout to walk ratio. Opponents were hitting .302 against Orioles relievers going into last night.
"All you have to do is look at the scoreboard around the league from night to night, at all the [lopsided] scores," Orioles executive vice president Mike Flanagan said. "It's not just us having some problems."
The Orioles do appear to be the team most often searching for solutions. They have added seven different relievers since Opening Day, a list that includes journeymen like Halama and Julio Manon, to unknown youngsters like Chris Britton and Kurt Birkins. As it was, the Orioles' bullpen on Opening Day did not include a single pitcher who was on their Opening Day roster a year earlier.
"That's a lot of change, but they are trying to get it right," said LaTroy Hawkins, the Orioles' prime setup man who had a 4.61 ERA entering last night. "It's unfortunate that the team has to suffer, but as a whole, it will come together. You have to have faith, man, but we're in this together. You can't point fingers."
