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A new day, the same topic for manager Grady Little, who spent the pregame again discussing his team's pitching woes.

Aaron Sele and D.J. Houlton are the most experienced pitchers at Triple-A Las Vegas, and Little left open all options when asked if there could be some adjustments to a 12-man pitching staff that entered Thursday's game with a 5.72 ERA.

"Anybody is a possibility for any role," said Little. "We left Spring Training with the 12 best people we felt could help us. Some of the results may lead someone to believe differently. I believe they should be given every opportunity."

The manager said that if relievers are putting extra pressure on themselves to pick up the slack from the absence of closer Eric Gagne, they shouldn't. Although the focus of the problems has been on the youthful bullpen, the ERA of the starters actually is higher than that of the relievers. Little said he expects his veteran starters to pitch deeper into games.

"It's not a winning proposition to look at the bullpen in the fifth inning," Little said. "In the end, it's not a good proposition. Everyone has got to take on their own responsibilities and do better in their roles. It's only April 13. We just need to be patient. We're not going into any kind of panic mode.

"It's like running a NASCAR race. We're running well on the track, but messing up a couple of pit stops. The car is still running well. If we clean up the pit stops, we'll finish the race in better shape."

Drew sits: After playing both games of Sunday's doubleheader, sitting out Monday's day game and playing Tuesday and Wednesday nights, J.D. Drew was not in Thursday's lineup against left-hander Oliver Perez. It's a platoon situation designed to preserve Drew's health, not a reflection of his offensive performance (.333 average, eight RBIs in nine games).

"It's part of my master plan," said Little. "We have confidence in [Cody Ross]. And we plan on having J.D. be productive for us in September. It's not a decision I've made by myself. I've talked to J.D about the big picture. He understands totally."

Among the considerations are Drew's success against right-handed pitching and his injury history. Drew is batting .364 in 22 at-bats against right-handers and .273 in 11 at-bats against left-handers. He played in only 72 games last year, which was cut short by a broken wrist.

But he also hasn't seemed to recover fully from last year's shoulder surgery. He has yet to come close to displaying the power throws that made him one of the better defensive right fielders in the league.

More injury updates: Outfielder Kenny Lofton and first baseman Nomar Garciaparra are eligible to be activated off the disabled list Friday and Tuesday, respectively, but there's no guarantee either will make it on time.

Manager Grady Little said that Lofton is close, but left open the possibility that he might not be activated until Saturday because of a strained calf muscle that turned out to be worse than originally believed. He has yet to run the bases.

Garciaparra was hopeful he would need no more than two weeks to heal from a strained ribcage muscle, but those are particularly troublesome when swinging a bat. Garciaparra has not yet begun hitting off a tee, so a Tuesday return would seem to be very optimistic.

Catcher Sandy Alomar Jr. said the calf muscle cramp he encountered Tuesday night was still sore, but he did not expect it to cost him any playing time. He blamed the injury on dehydration. He was not in Thursday's lineup, but that was a planned off-day for the day game after a night game.

Shortstop Rafael Furcal is still occasionally troubled by a sore shoulder he encountered trying to play catch-up this spring while recovering from knee surgery. Furcal said he still feels it on certain throws, especially off his back leg.

Dodgers clinic: Danys Baez, James Loney, Manny Mota and former Dodger Willie Davis will instruct youngsters Saturday at a Play Ball L.A. clinic at the Wrigley Dream Field at Gilbert Lindsay Recreation Center in South Los Angeles from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. PT.

Gagne bowling: The second annual Eric Gagne Dodgers Dream Foundation Bowling Extravaganza will be held May 8 at Lucky Strike Hollywood. Gagne, recovering from surgery, is expected to participate left-handed at the charity event.

Coming up: Brad Penny (2-0, 1.50 ERA) opens the Dodgers' homestand when he starts Friday night against Jamey Wright (1-0, 5.14 ERA) and the Giants.

There were malfunctions on Wednesday night with the Dodgers' starting pitching, relief pitching and even the dugout phone used to call the bullpen.

"It got rectified," manager Grady Little said, but unfortunately for him, he was talking about only the phone.

He hasn't yet figured out a solution to his club's pitching problems, which resulted in another come-from-ahead loss to Jim Tracy's Pittsburgh Pirates, 9-5.

Starter Brett Tomko, staked to a 3-0 lead by the third inning, served up three of the four home runs hit by the Pirates and was gone after five innings, another short start that gave the youthful bullpen another opportunity to give the game away.

Hong-Chih Kuo allowed the second home run of the game hit by Craig Wilson -- a two-run shot in the seventh. Yhency Brazoban allowed two more runs in the eighth.

"We could have the same meeting we had last night," Little told reporters, referring to his discussion after Jae Seo let a 5-0 lead get away, and the bullpen took a 7-6 loss on Tuesday night.

Little and pitching coach Rick Honeycutt have been particularly unhappy with relievers allowing the first batter they face to reach base, but the trend continued with both Kuo and Brazoban. Kuo also lost track of a runner that stole second base without a look by the pitcher, while Brazoban's first two pitches went for line singles.

"They're going to be given every opportunity," Little said, referring to the bullpen in general. "How long that lasts, I'm not sure. I know we've got a club not firing on all cylinders. That's the cylinder that's not hitting on."

Little surely wasn't complaining about the offense, which handed the customary lead to Tomko via a first-inning home run by Jose Cruz Jr. (three hits after the flu) and RBI singles from Jeff Kent and Olmedo Saenz. But Tomko allowed a solo homer to Freddy Sanchez in the fourth, a triple to Chris Duffy and homer by Jack Wilson on an 0-2 pitch in the fifth, then walked Jason Bay and served up another two-run homer to Craig Wilson.

Afterward, the Dodgers' starting pitcher and catcher had differing interpretations on what went wrong.

"I strayed away from our game plan," explained Tomko. "A few of their guys, I've had pretty good success with the last couple of years. It's up to me to stick to what's been successful. A couple of pitches I wish I had back."

Tomko said he went with pitches called by catcher Sandy Alomar Jr. and should have shaken off his catcher on a few of them.

"You get caught up in the rhythm," he said. "I should just step back and go with what's worked in the past."

Alomar -- who suffered a cramp in his right calf when he singled in the seventh inning but stayed in the game -- said Tomko's problem wasn't pitch selection, but pitch location.

"On the pitch to Jack Wilson, he was supposed to go up and in but left the ball middle-in," said Alomar. "On 0-2, you shouldn't give up a home run. We threw too many strikes in those situations. He left one breaking ball up for a home run. You have to keep them low in the zone. He just missed a few locations, that's the bottom line."

The fifth inning was Tomko's undoing. It started with a long lead-off triple by Duffy and was followed by Jack Wilson's home run. At that point, the Dodgers tried to get Franquelis Osoria warming up, but the dugout phone to the bullpen was dead. Coaches and players were waving from the dugout trying to get the attention of anyone in the center-field bullpen.

Meanwhile, Tomko then walked Bay and got Jeromy Burnitz on a fly to right. By the time the Dodgers finally got Osoria up and throwing, Craig Wilson had tied the game with his home run, the fifth Tomko has allowed in 11 innings. Tomko ended the inning by retiring Sanchez and Jose Castillo.

Little, who stopped the game to complain about the phone to plate umpire Joe Brinkman, lifted Tomko between innings, but said the malfunction did not impact the inning because he was not removing Tomko earlier than that.

Alomar said Brazoban's velocity wasn't up to his normal speed, a continuation of his inconsistency since developing arm soreness in the spring. The stolen base on Kuo, Alomar believed, might have been the result of Tracy's inside information from last year.

"I guess they picked something up on him," he said.

The Dodger team ERA is now 5.72. The starters are 6.08 and the relievers are 5.17. Tomko's ERA is 6.55 and only one Dodger starter is lower than that -- Brad Penny at 1.50. The Pirates have hit eight home runs in the last two games, five by the Wilsons -- three by Craig, two by Jack.

Baseball officials, when faced with tough personnel choices, claim the players make the decisions by their performance.

If that's the case, Cody Ross isn't going anywhere soon after he challenged Olmedo Saenz for ownership of PNC Park on Thursday.

Playing to give J.D. Drew the day off, Ross slugged a grand slam and a three-run homer for seven RBIs, outproducing Saenz's home run and four RBIs, as the Dodgers coasted to a 13-5 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates that salvaged a split of their four-game series.

Out of options after an impressive Spring Training, Ross made the Opening Day roster only because of a calf injury to Kenny Lofton. As Lofton's return approaches (probably Friday or Saturday), Ross has been anticipating the news that he's been either traded, claimed by another club, or worst of all, outrighted back to Triple-A because no other club wanted him in the Major Leagues.

Chances are, it will be none of the above. After Ross' muscle-flexing, which included a 440-footer off the back of the bullpen wall, manager Grady Little indicated that the club might make room for Lofton by moving a player other than Ross, and possibly by reducing the staff to 11 pitchers, even if it would be only a temporary solution.

"It's a possibility," he said. "That's something we were leaning toward before we got on the plane [to leave Pittsburgh]."

Little said his struggling relievers might be more effective if there were fewer of them pitching more regularly. That could mean optioning to Las Vegas a young reliever like Franquelis Osoria, whose ERA is 12.27 after he allowed a run Thursday.

Even more likely, something could be done with Yhency Brazoban, who is pitching as if the sore shoulder and elbow he battled during Spring Training still aren't sound. He was shut down for two weeks in Florida and might be headed back to the sidelines.

"The guys feel he's not throwing like he's capable of throwing," said Little.