This was the worst week of the season for the bullpen and unsurprisingly it was the week in which they were the most taxed. With Gary Glover and Al Reyes both on the DL, the team has been turning towards other pitchers for some support. As you can see, the bullpen threw over 20 innings including three days of 70+ pitches.

The best pitcher in the bullpen this week was by far Kurt Birkins. Birkins didn't allow any runs over six innings and provided help in four separate games. The most impressive thing Birkins has shown is that he is capable of working quick innings and keeping his pitch count down. Through six innings pitched he averaged a little over 13 pitches per inning. One of the biggest improvements he has made thus far from last season has been his ability to not allow line drives. His LD% this season is a amazing 4.3% compared to last season's atrocious 23.1%. While this is still a small sample size, Rays fans must be happy with what they have received from the southpaw up to this point.

If Birkins was the best pitcher this week, then Scott Dohmann must have been the worst. Dohmann allowed five runs in three innings of work, and one would expect he would be the first person kicked out once Glover or Reyes are available.

Troy Percival kept his stat-line clean with his save and one inning of work. However, the Rays have continued to show that they will only be using him in save situations. It will be interesting to see how he is used for the rest of the season, and whether he would be brought in during games when we are losing by one run in the ninth.

One thing to keep a close eye on over the next week or two is the performance of Jason Hammel. Sometimes making the transition from starter to the bullpen can be difficult, but the Rays will most likely remain patient either way since he is out of options.

The spotlight has been turned onto Dohmann recently with his two victories this past weekend, but they weren't of the typical kind. Friday night he induced a double play in the top of the 11th and Saturday night Dohmann struck out Manny Ramirez on a high fastball to keep the deficit at 1-0 Red Sox. The Rays would of course go on to win both games, but the questions are; how good has Dohmann been and can he sustain it?

In 11.1 innings Dohmann has allowed 12 hits, 2 walks, 3 runs, and struck out 8. His BABIP is .334, but with a line drive percentage of 16.7 Dohmann is seemingly had some tough luck with the hits given up, approximately 2 added hits per 50 line drives. The key to Dohmann's success can be tied directly to his groundball percentage of 61.1, quite a jump over his 38% career norm to go with a sense of increased control.

As that goes Dohmann's season will go, nothing sticks out suspiciously fluky about it. Pitching coach Jim Hickey has seemingly preached pitching down in the strike zone to his staff, seeing substantially increased groundball rates for Dohmann, Andrew Sonnanstine, Jason Hammel, J.P. Howell, Gary Glover, and Dan Wheeler. With an improved infield defense the results have been nothing short of sparkling.

RAYS 2, Boston 1 Tropicana FieldSt. Petersburg, FL

Win Probability Table Courtesy of Fan Graphs

Over the off-season I professed how I had a distaste for our bullpen, particularly the middle and back parts consisting of Gary Glover and Scott Dohmann. Every Monday I'll look at the usage over the past week, that obviously begins today.

Generally speaking the bullpen did an excellent job this week even with one loss credited to Al Reyes, and only one save to Troy Percival. The unit saw 13.6 innings worth of work, allowing six runs -- four by Reyes and the other two by Miller -- for an ERA of 3.97, quite an improvement over the 6.16 ERA last season, even at such a small sample size.

Beginning at the top, Percival was only called upon once and was efficient in preserving his first Rays save and the 325th of his career. Showing great poise Percival worked through an iffy non-strike call against Bobby Abreu and located his next pitch, striking the veteran out to end the game. Although his role thus far has been near minimal Percival's clubhouse demeanor and role have been unmatched, look for the new bullpen area configuration this week at the request of Percival.

Despite a bloodbath at the hands of the Baltimore Orioles Reyes has been solid in two of his three appearances, including cleaning up a mess left by Miller on Saturday. In the past I was skeptical about giving Reyes even more innings, but thus far it appears Joe Maddon is leaning towards using Miller and Reyes in union for the 8th inning, at least until their performance or address dictates otherwise.

Speaking of Miller he's hardly impressed, yet this is nothing unexpected. Over his career Miller has thrown more than 200 innings during the first half of the season and has an ERA of 5.18, as opposed to his 3.65 ERA in the second half. Another thing to watch during the unfortunately named "Miller Time" will be his pre-pitch tendencies, namely if he continues to go to the bill of his hat prior to each pitch.

We now reach a piece that the Rays have chosen as a core of the relief staff through 2010 at the earliest, yes the newest extension receiver, Dan Wheeler. Not only did Wheeler find himself with the most work this week but he also found himself as the most effective, not allowing a baserunner thus far while striking out two batters. As I've pointed out numerous times it wasn't hard to see that Wheeler was a candidate for performance regression, or in this case progression, based on his peripherals. His contract extension isn't just reasonable, it's a downright steal for an organization that since its inception has been hard-pressed to find consistently successful relievers and keep them in Rays uniforms.

From awful starter to potentially useful reliever, thus is the career path of one James Phillip Howell. As he showed Sunday Howell is able to go multiple innings without ill results, even against the most vaunted of lineups. To his credit, Howell also showed the ability to retire batters of either hand equally well, and even went on a streak of seven straight outs. For one day at least, Howell appears to have reached the point of his career where the talk of potentially becoming useful is turning into results and is certainly someone to watch for as this season ages.

Finally we reach Scott Dohmann and Gary Glover and while neither did anything to grant my ire, yet, I'm encouraged that Glover was used the least of all relief arms. To their credit both have been effective, but I sincerely question if the level of success achieved last year can be replicated by either. I'm skeptical, but hopeful, if the duo can at least be around league average the Rays pen could become amongst the deepest in the league.

Since the bullpen won't consist of these seven all season, or at least it's highly inconceivable that such a rarity would occur, I would also like to highlight some of the relievers at Durham during this space. Grant Balfour, the 8th reliever if you will, cleared waivers and accepted an outright assignment to Durham. Steve Andrade remains on the disabled list to start the season meanwhile Chad Orvella has seemingly yet to recover from his injury, but the good news -- I guess -- is that Kurt Birkins has began throwing again and could join Durham soon. Dale Thayer, Calvin Medlock, Nick DeBarr and Scott Munter have been solid thus far with Ben Hendrickson  being anything but, allowing six runs in two and two-thirds innings of work.