DETROIT -- Phil Coke insists he doesn't need a pep talk. Maybe he's right. No amount of talk is going to help him throw strikes.

Still, after another poor outing Thursday, Brayan Pena figured he had to say something to the struggling Tigers reliever. So Pena sat Coke down on a clubhouse couch and told him to relax, that he was putting too much pressure on himself.

"That's when you need to be there for your teammates because it's a long season," Pena explained.

It's been especially long for Coke. The left-handed, late-inning specialist admitted he's got no answers right now. This is the same guy whose effort last fall was crucial to the Tigers' postseason run.

"I've never experienced the game being this rude for so long," he said at his locker stall, "right now (the game) is really testing me."

He almost sounded Zen as he spoke after his latest struggle - he gave up a homer and three walks in a third of an inning at Comerica Park. That pushed his ERA above 6.00.

"It's the game," he said, not blaming, just contemplating. "(It) dictates itself. However it's going to go ... that's how it goes."

These are not the words of a man who believes in what he's doing. They are the words of a pitcher who can't record outs. Right now, the Tigers possess too many of them in the bullpen.

As Coke said: "If I'm pitching the way I'm capable, we are not even close in the standings."

When I suggested that sounded like he was taking the hit for the entire bullpen, he said: "I'm saying that as a spectator looking at the numbers. They can't be wrong."

Well, no, they aren't.

Yet the numbers demand context. They are a symptom of a bullpen without enough options. Right now, when the Tigers are tied or in the lead, Jim Leyland relies on Drew Smyly and Joaquin Benoit.

Al Alburquerque has the talent to join them. Perhaps he will - he had a decent outing Thursday against the White Sox.

Coke should be in that group, too. His velocity is fine. His change-up is solid. His location is not. He has spent much of the season trying to fix it. Film studies. Bullpen sessions. Talks with pitching coach Jeff Jones. Nothing has worked.

So here was Pena, patting Coke on the back, quietly offering him words of encouragement. I don't blame him. Pena understands how critical Coke is to the bullpen's stability.

If he can't get outs, that stresses other arms. It also limits the moves Leyland can make, right now he doesn't trust Coke with a lead. His pitcher doesn't fault him.

"I'm not going to come in (again) with a lead until I show I can do the job," he said.

He didn't come close to showing that Thursday, which helps explain why he looked so weary. His team is in a pennant race, and he is tired of not pulling his weight.

He is mystified that his constant searching has yet to reveal answers - even the tweak he thought would help last week dissolved in a flurry of meatballs and wild pitches this week against the White Sox. So he keeps looking, and he keeps sprinting in from the bullpen, and he leans on his teammates as they tell him to keep his head up, and he prays to the baseball gods that he has bottomed out.

"As bad as it is and has been, it's got nowhere to go but up," he said. "It has to turn around ... has to."

Yes, it does.

His team doesn't have much longer to wait.