Bullpen

CSI: Citizens Bank Park is on the case. All the best forensic techniques have been utilized to determine why, with two months remaining in the regular season, a Phillies team coming off five straight division titles needs a minor miracle to avoid having the rest of its schedule consist of dog days followed by E-A-G-L-E-S!, playing out the string and wait until next year. Some of the clues are obvious. Ryan Howard and Chase Utley were on the disabled list for most of the first half of the season.

Citizens Bank Park was half empty when the Phillies finally won Sunday, probably because these fans too often have seen games like this one evolve into a horror show. The nightmare fuel is a tie game, an open bullpen door, and extra innings. So there was satisfaction in the Phillies clubhouse after a 4-3, 12-inning victory over San Francisco - no matter how close to irrelevance the team stands. Above the field, where general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. and his lieutenants sit, the same feeling likely existed for far different reasons.

Charlie Manuel stewed after another loss gift-wrapped by the Phillies bullpen. The manager said the front office would try to make it better if it can. "We will," he said. Then he looked at a piece of paper listing his available relievers and voiced the obvious. "That's who we have to use," he said. That was a month ago. It was in Baltimore, and Manuel was verbalizing after a walk-off loss for the second consecutive day. Jonathan Papelbon, who signed the richest deal for a reliever in baseball history, sat unused again.

In baseball, the most difficult game in the world, one success in three attempts is a very good average. The Phillies, who are definitely making the game look as difficult as it is, hope they don't go 1 for 3 in a much more important way this season. If the Phils are going to turn around their season, they need to do better than that as Chase Utley, Roy Halladay, and Ryan Howard come back from health and injury issues. Just getting one of them back as a contributing performer won't cut it. Getting two back would help a lot, but still might not be enough.

July 29 has always been the key trade deadline date for Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. That's when he acquired Cliff Lee from Cleveland in 2009, Roy Oswalt from Houston in 2010 and Hunter Pence from Houston in 2011. Amaro does not have to make a move nearly that big this summer, but he cannot wait nearly as long to do what must be done. The Phillies have a broken-down bullpen, and if the general manager waits another month for outside help, it's going to be too late, regardless of when Ryan Howard and Roy Halladay return from the disabled list.

MIAMI - Bullpen coach Mick Billmeyer did not pay attention Friday to how the ball moved from Roy Halladay's right hand to home plate. He was watching something else as Halladay threw off a mound for the first time in almost five weeks. "His face looked good," Billmeyer said. That's as good a sign as any. It was a strain for Halladay to pitch in May with a shoulder injury, but the team insists he has overcome it. In fact, pitching coach Rich Dubee said, Halladay is ahead of schedule in his recovery.

RYAN HOWARD roamed the dugout with the elated ease of a rescued castaway Wednesday night, even told the media assembled for an update on his condition that, "I missed you all. " The feeling is mutual, of course, even if the emotion is based more on sentiment than salvation. Because Chase Utley and the current four hitter, Carlos Ruiz, hit consecutive first-inning home runs and Jimmy Rollins continued to get on base and the Phillies scored seven runs. But the Phillies' bullpen, used en masse to cover a rainout-caused hole in the rotation, continued to be a torturous ride of inaccuracy and inconsistency and that, as it has for much of this month, doomed any chance of forgetting this team's real Achilles' problem is not at the end of Howard's leg, or anywhere inside of Utley's knees.

THE NINTH INNING for the Phillies was pitched by someone without a nameplate above his locker — and the unnamed Jeremy Horst did just fine, thanks. Horst pitched a scoreless ninth, Brian Sanches pitched a scoreless eighth, the majority of the bullpen is the walking definition of untested, and the Phillies are trying to force-feed them experience on the one hand and get back in a pennant race on the other hand. "A balancing act" is what general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. called it. "Pretty damn difficult" is what field manager Charlie Manuel called it. Upstairs, downstairs.

CARLOS RUIZ tagged Michael McKenry on the shoulder and Michael Schwimer turned to the nearest human beings he could find. They were the fans seated behind the on-deck circle. Schwimer screamed at them in excitement, pumped his right arm, and dashed into the Phillies' dugout. "I was trying to stop myself," Schwimer said, "from jumping in the crowd. " The bullpen roulette spun Tuesday to the 26-year-old righthander, who said 3 weeks ago, "This is it. This is a huge opportunity.

THE UPSIDE to all of this — the blown leads, the late-inning meltdowns, the suffocating level of frustration in the clubhouse — can be found in a moment like the one that occurred in the eighth inning on Monday night. Rookie lefthander Jake Diekman had just thrown six straight fastballs that missed the zone, the first four resulting in his 10th walk of the season, the next two prompting a restless murmuring from the crowd at Citizens Bank Park. The Phillies held a five-run lead that would have seemed comfortable if not for their recent track record in eighth and ninth innings.