By Mike Lurie
SportsLine Staff Writer

BALTIMORE -- Funny -- or, at least, ironic -- how things can come full cycle. The most recent time the Baltimore Orioles' starting pitching failed so unexpectedly, the affected parties were people whose careers Ray Miller enhanced.

That year was 1987, when Mike Flanagan and Scott McGregor volunteered to return to Triple-A Rochester and figure out what was ailing them.

By then, the Minnesota Twins had bounced Miller out of his first managerial job, a job he had earned on the basis of shaping pitchers such as Flanagan, McGregor, Mike Boddicker, Sammy Stewart and Storm Davis when Miller was a Baltimore minor-league instructor and, later, the Orioles' pitching coach.

By then, Miller had returned to a relatively serene pace coaching Jim Leyland's pitchers in Pittsburgh, back when baseball economics allowed teams such as the Pirates to win division titles.

Player turnover and the lack of quality pitching are more pronounced than ever, certainly more so than 1987. So the kind of pitching Miller had going for him in his second turn as a manager, in the late '90s -- this time with the Orioles -- seemed about as good as any.

Who besides the Yankees and Toronto wouldn't be happy to start the season with a top three of Mike Mussina, Scott Erickson and Juan Guzman?

Mussina is one of baseball's top right-handers, and with Miller as his pitching coach in 1997, he finally emerged as a big-game pitcher, too. Erickson devours innings and usually delivers them with quality.

Guzman led the American League in ERA three years ago; wishful thinking was that injuries were behind some of his recent inconsistency.

Amid the Titanic-sized disaster that has been the Orioles' season, the starters are the most offending navigators.

THERE'S LITTLE EXPLANATION FOR what has happened. Rumblings that these athletes don't mesh with new pitching coach Bruce Kison were just a small part of the phenomenon. It seems as if these veterans have lost a grasp of what works for them.

The Orioles had to approach the May before a starter other than Mussina earned a victory. That person was 21-year-old Sidney Ponson, No. 4 in the rotation.

Miller's pointed response after that game, Friday night over the Twins: "Every night you keep expecting that a veteran's going to step up and maybe start to turn this thing around. Instead, it takes a 21-year-old kid to do it."

That left-handed compliment -- which would be appropriate if the Orioles actually had a left-hander in the rotation -- wasn't lost on the veterans, who had heard far-less-subtle criticism from the manager about "accountability" and "courage" after an 11-10 loss on April 28.

Miller fired that day's missive at the entire team. Yet it is the performance of the starters that will get Miller fired. Chances are the only way his dismissal won't occur this week is if the Orioles sweep three games from the White Sox at the end of their homestand.

HARD TO IMAGINE THAT happening when the starters are:

• Erickson, who is 0-5 (9.36 ERA) and has routinely been battered in early innings and whose only quality start, on April 24, ended with a three-run homer on a day former Oriole Mike Oquist led Oakland to a 3-0 win;
• Guzman, who's 0-3 and lasted just 3-1/3 innings against Kansas City in his most recent outing. Since the Orioles acquired him last July, he has not had two consecutive quality starts;
• Finally, Ponson and any assortment of No. 5 possibilities -- perennial prospect Rocky Coppinger and veteran Scott Kamieniecki. Ponson has frustrated the staff by not bringing total commitment to improving his breaking pitches or his physical condition. Coppinger performed well enough in Triple-A for Miller to turn to him, only to see him walk six hitters in less than two innings in his first start.

Until Ponson had earned his first victory, the starters besides Mussina were 0-10 and the rotation's ERA was 7.18.

"It's very tough to overcome those types of numbers," Miller said.

Mike Mussina is one of Baltimore's few bright spots this season.(AP)

Historically, though, there's precedent for Erickson and Guzman to do better, for Ponson and Coppinger to mold their promise. If Kamieniecki is indeed well enough to get back into the rotation after a series of neck and hamstring problems, the Orioles might even have the luxury of moving Ponson to long relief and letting him develop slowly.

THAT'S HOW IT USED TO BE. That's the way Baltimore used to bring pitchers along when Miller was an Orioles pitching coach 20 years ago. Miller longs for that kind of time, for that kind of quality.

He has neither. Few managers do. It still seems baffling. Compared to the rest of the AL, this rotation should easily be among the top six. Instead, it has been the worst.

Guzman's frustration has been typical.

"I'm not throwing as many strikes as I'm supposed to," Guzman said. "I'm falling behind hitters and I'm pitching up in the strike zone. I need to bring my pitches down. It's something I'm going to work on. This isn't the way I normally throw."

The relationship is frayed to start with. The players give Miller only grudging respect anyway. Reportedly, after a team meeting last week they urged him to "let the players play."

The actual performance of the pitchers is the pivotal factor that likely will seal Miller's fate. Yet he has to press on, relying on his veterans' past performance.

"I think Moose, Guz (Guzman) and Scotty (Erickson) are three guys you've got to go with. You've got to pitch them every five days," Miller said. "I've got to get them going."

Maybe they can. Or, maybe, this is 1987 all over again.