Bullpen

This is the kind of season it's going to be for the Orioles. Better get used to it. Not so much the walk-off home runs or the blown late-inning leads, although technically speaking, it's exactly that kind of season so far. In fact, you can pretty much plan your Sunday afternoons around the Orioles coughing up a lead in the other team's last at-bat, because it has now happened three of the past four Sundays. In a larger sense, though, the season is going to be defined by its inconsistency, its ability to tease you, its way of dragging your emotions and expectations up and down over and over again.

What if comedian Bob Newhart were the bullpen coach who answered the telephone when Orioles manager Dave Trembley called for help Tuesday night? "RRRRIIINNNGGG: Hello, Orioles bullpen, it's your dime. Oh, hi, Dave, how are you? Oh, not so good, huh. Sorry to hear that Dave. ... Yeah, we can hear the booing out here, too. Well, you know what I say - just as long as they stay in the stands (chuckle). ... No, I guess it's not so funny. ... So, what can we do you for you, Dave? ... You need a pitcher?

On the Orioles The Orioles really haven't been outplayed through 12 [games], and almost no one in the offense has hit his stride. The starting pitching has been good or better. There are too many base runners, which can eventually come back to get you, but they've survived pretty well. The bullpen has generally looked good. Once the Orioles get Ramon Hernandez and Jay Payton back, that will be a good thing. This is a different team than in the past few years. It's always nice to watch them win, but these victories don't hold as much weight as a win against Minnesota would have.

On the same day that Roger Clemens signed with the New York Yankees to bolster a rotation that's been ravaged by injuries, the Orioles sent Brian Burres to the mound as a means of repairing their own. One guy is headed to the Hall of Fame. The other could be going back to the bullpen. Indians@Orioles Today, 12:35 p.m., MASN, 105.7 FM Starters: Fausto Carmona (2-1, 3.76) vs. Steve Trachsel (1-3, 4.08)

Good morning -- Kyle Boller -- It appears you'll need to keep warming up in the bullpen.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- The visiting bullpen at Tropicana Field is only about 200 feet away from the pitcher's mound, so if Erik Bedard didn't see Rob Bell warming up, he almost certainly heard the sounds of Bell's pitches popping the catcher's mitt. It was only the fourth inning yesterday, but Bedard had scuffled enough early that Orioles manager Dave Trembley wasn't about to take any chances, even if that meant taking his best starter and a burgeoning American League Cy Young Award candidate out of the game before he was eligible to earn a victory.

After opening the 2006 season in Triple-A Ottawa's starting rotation, Kurt Birkins was called up May 2 and became a valuable member of the Orioles' beleaguered bullpen. Birkins, a 26-year-old California native who the Orioles drafted in the 33rd round in 2000, was used as a left-handed relief specialist, going 5-2 with a 4.94 ERA. He is competing for the final open spot in the bullpen. What was your reaction this offseason when you were hearing about all the Orioles' bullpen additions?

FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. -- The sound of a bullpen phone ringing. That's all it took for pitcher Rob Bell's heart to pound, his palms to sweat, his body to shake. One call from his team's dugout, and his baseball life felt as if it were ripping apart at the seams. Bell's only victory in 2005, at least the kind that appears in a box score, came against the Orioles, the team that signed him to a minor league contract in November, invited him to spring training and has given him a chance to make the club as a long reliever.

NORFOLK, Va. -- The Orioles ended their first game in their new Triple-A affiliate's park by doing something they couldn't manage often last season: holding a late lead. The Orioles' bullpen, which gave up 321 runs in the sixth, seventh and eighth innings last season, came through in the ninth inning yesterday, as the team edged the Washington Nationals, 6-5, in an exhibition game at Harbor Park. The Nationals cut a 6-4 Orioles lead in half in the ninth, but Chris Ray struck out the game's final batter with the tying run on third.

The Boston Red Sox, one of baseball's most balanced teams, felt the need to add it. So did the Seattle Mariners and Atlanta Braves. Most potential playoff teams try to do the same, whether it's through late-season trades or minor league call-ups. Big league bullpen help. You can never have enough. Dependable relief is one of the most overlooked aspects in baseball. During the wilting heat of August and the pressure cooker of September, however, nothing provides peace of mind like a rock-solid group of relievers.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - - Three years after spending more than $40 million to overhaul their bullpen, the Orioles will again have to make significant upgrades in that area this offseason. The bullpen's latest collapse Monday - Matt Albers and Chris Ray combined to cough up a three-run seventh-inning lead against the Tampa Bay Rays - left the Orioles' bullpen with a 4.93 ERA, the second worst in the American League, behind only the Kansas City Royals. "The bullpen's struggles have shifted my thinking to the point where I know we're going to probably have more resources in that area than I originally anticipated," Orioles president of baseball operations Andy MacPhail said.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - -They led by three runs and had only nine outs to get to end a 10-game losing streak that added even more heartache to a season that had already been miserable enough. The Orioles received a quality start from Mark Hendrickson, a two-run homer from Brian Roberts and two rare two-out RBI hits. With the way things have been going, it was probably far too much to ask for the bullpen to protect a lead. Continuing the one-bullpen-implosion-per-night theme of the road trip, Matt Albers served up a game-tying three-run homer to pinch hitter Willy Aybar with two outs in the seventh inning, one of four Tampa Bay Rays' home runs.

CLEVELAND - -In the first two weeks of September, the Orioles promoted six relievers and acquired another, left-hander Sean Henn, in a minor league trade. The hope was that the additions would bolster a tired bullpen and give several pitchers an opportunity to show that they belong at the major league level. What it has done instead is reveal a lack of organizational depth in that area and likely made several necessary offseason roster decisions much easier to make. In the first 21 games this month, the Orioles bullpen has a 6.43 ERA, having allowed 50 earned runs in 70 innings.

NEW YORK - - If the Orioles want to see how right-hander Koji Uehara reacts to a bullpen role, they'll have to wait until next season. With Uehara still experiencing some soreness in his right elbow, the Orioles decided to shut him down for the rest of the 2009 campaign, ending a disappointing year for the first Japanese native to play for the club. "I'm upset because I wasn't able to contribute to the team," Uehara said through his interpreter, Jiwon Bang. "It's a lot of minuses, so I can't really assess my season."

NEW YORK - - Orioles manager Dave Trembley said he will meet with president of baseball operations Andy MacPhail on Friday in Boston to discuss the status of struggling pitcher Rich Hill. With a day off today before beginning a weekend series against the Boston Red Sox, the Orioles could skip Hill's next turn in the rotation or they could make a more drastic move and release the pitcher or designate him for assignment. Trembley said after Hill's start Tuesday, in which he allowed five runs in three-plus innings, that the pitcher has been "extended every measure of patience by all of us."

ANAHEIM, Calif -. - If nothing else over the past two days at sun-drenched Angel Stadium, the Orioles succeeded in putting on clinics on how to blow four-run leads in the middle innings. On Saturday, it was two defensive miscues, coupled with an all-around implosion by a tiring bullpen that resulted in a disheartening defeat. In Sunday's 9-6 loss in front of an announced 35,912, Orioles pitchers lost touch with the strike zone at the most inopportune times as a chance to secure a four-game series split went by the wayside.

With his right elbow throbbing and his mind filled with doubt, Danys Baez left Fort Lauderdale Stadium on a late February afternoon and returned to his Miami-area home seeking both counsel and reassurance from his wife, Mireya. "I said to her, 'I don't know if I'm going to make it,' " Baez recalled. " 'This is not what I expected. I'm in really bad pain right now and if I have to deal with this kind of pain, I cannot pitch anymore.' " Hours earlier, Baez had started for the Orioles in a Grapefruit League game against the St. Louis Cardinals.

He was a tall, gangly relief pitcher with a lofty IQ and a low ERA. The Orioles' Dick Hall could compute batting averages in his head. Most of those who faced him watched their numbers fall. Other pitchers threw harder than Hall, but few threw smarter than the 6-foot-6 right-hander, a graduate of Swarthmore College and a cog in the Orioles' bullpen during the club's finest years. In nine seasons with Baltimore, Hall won 65 games, saved 58 more and had an ERA of 2.89. He helped the Orioles win a couple of World Series (1966 and 1970)

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -With their roles no longer certain, Orioles relievers held a "bullpen only" meeting in the visiting clubhouse at Tropicana Field before Monday's series opener against the Tampa Bay Rays. They were mum on what was discussed, though Orioles manager Dave Trembley made it clear that the meeting was planned by the relievers, not the coaching staff, who held their own meeting in Trembley's office before the game. "That was an impromptu get-together on their part," Trembley said.

It took three days, but it appears the Orioles have unlocked the formula. Funny how teams can learn more in a defeat than they ever can in victory. Those first two games of the season? We learned the Orioles have the ability to score some runs. (We also learned that Mark Teixeira is evil incarnate, hates cute babies and probably parks in handicap spaces without the state-approved placard. But that horse has been beaten into submission and won't likely be walking again. At least not until the Yankees return to town next month.