It is not helpful when your pitchers only go 5 innings, as it puts an inordinate workload on the bullpen. Ideally, we'd get minimum of 6 innings, and better yet, 7 from each starter, to ensure the 'pen is getting a fair but not excessive amount of innings. Plus, warming up a pitcher at the start of the 6th has two potential downsides: for one, it is not showing confidence in your starter who has so far pitched 5 good innings, and more importantly, warming up relievers itself takes a toll on their long term endurance, so you typically don't warm guys up until the probability or criticality (is that a word?) of needing them reaches a certain ill defined threshold.
Ahh, I see, so at the moment it is a problem that we cannot get more than 5 solid innings out of our pitchers. Identifying the problem is easy, its addressing it that seems to be an issue.
