Not Much Relief From the Relievers

The Orioles head into tonight's game with Toronto at 13-14, the last loss coming courtesy of another horrendous performance by the bullpen. Tonight's loss was even more crushing because the blame goes to one who was among the few stalwarts- LaTroy Hawkins, who allowed a home run to Troy Glaus that put the Jays ahead for good, at 5-3. Also culpable were Jim Brower (real shocker there) and John Halama, who had been pitching decently up until yesterday. This bullpen collapse spoiled a good performance by Erik Bedard, who allowed only two runs in six innings of work.

Reacting to the dismal failures of the bullpen, the Orioles took action today, calling up left-hander Kurt Birkins and right-hander Julio Manon from Triple-A Ottawa and designating veteran Jim Brower for assignment. Eddy Rodriguez was optioned to Ottawa. Birkins had a 3.20 ERA for the Lynx, in 5 starts. Manon is a minor league veteran, posted a sub 1.00 ERA for Ottawa, but spent the past two seasons overseas.

Getting rid of Brower, who walked more batters than he struck out, is probably addition by subtraction at this point, but neither Birkins or Manon are Jonathan Papelbons or Chris Rays, highly touted young pitchers ready to step into the majors and dominate big-league hitters.

This was to be expected entering the season, seeing as they failed to compensate for losing B.J. Ryan as a solid bullpen arm. The front office evidently felt that having a patchwork bullpen would be good enough (or more likely, were just too cheap to do anything about it). This is understandable considering that prior to the 2005 season, two veteran relievers, Steve Kline and Steve Reed, were signed, and both turned out to be huge flops. However, it's not as if there weren't moderately priced relievers out there on the free agent market. (Julian Tavarez, Jay Witasick, Chad Bradford etc.) The consequences for having as bad a bullpen as the Orioles do are devastating. Baseball games are won and lost in the final three innings. Sadly, the Orioles seem to have forgotten about that.

At this point, there are few solutions to the problem, other than calling everyone from Triple A up and crossing your fingers. If a team would take Javy Lopez for a reliever with some years still left on his contract, it'd be great, but that doesn't seem too likely.

I know the Orioles aren't going to contend this year, and they wouldn't even if their bullpen was decent. However, the way the season has been going so far, poor relief could make the difference between a winning season and a losing season. With the starting rotation set to be as good as it has been in years, despite the early season struggles of Rodrigo Lopez and Bruce Chen, and an offense that, if it can avoid injury, looks to be capable of producing runs, the Orioles have a chance for at least a winning season. It would be a shame to see that all go up in flames simply because the front office did not acquire bullpen help.