SARASOTA, Fla. -- On the heels of the most trying stretches of their Major League careers, Alex Cobb and Andrew Cashner tried to get away. This was last July, with the bulk of baseball off for the All-Star break. To decompress, two of the Orioles' top starters sought refuge in nature, turning to the tranquil shores of Lake Joseph Muskoka, a one-hotel town tucked into the Ontario wilderness. There they vowed to turn the page.

“It’s easy to dwell on [your struggles] and cave. It’s real easy to cave. I didn’t want that to ever be my MO,” said Cobb, who, at the time, was trying to make sense of his 2-12 record and 6.41 first-half ERA. “I vividly remember thinking, 'This is a reset button.'”

Now the Orioles as a whole are looking for another reset.

As they dive head-on into a rebuild with one of baseball’s least-experienced staffs and a relief corps that figures to be consistently in flux, the O's figure to face larger challenges than most in their nightly quest toward 27 outs. That’s why they’re at least open to considering anything, from openers, swingmen and firemen to bullpening and piggybacking. They may open the season closer-less. They will limit some starters' third time through the order. They will dig into data with the hope that analytics can help their host of young arms navigate the behemoths of the American League East. They will throw -- excuse the expression -- everything at the wall to see what sticks.

“We have,” pitching coach Doug Brocail says, pausing for emphasis, “to be better than last year.”

Brocail wasn’t in Baltimore then, when the Orioles posted a Major League worst 5.18 staff ERA. But Cobb, Cashner and Dylan Bundy were, and everything on the pitching side begins and ends with them. That veteran group -- Bundy is arbitration eligible and the staff’s longest tenured member -- figures to start 60 percent of Baltimore’s games and constitute more than a third of its projected payroll. It’s a trio that could sport more service time than the rest of the staff combined. They also pitched to a 5.23 ERA last season, when they combined to lose nearly as many games (46), as the Orioles won as a team (47).

“They’re obviously really important to us,” manager Brandon Hyde said. “We’re relying on them to be productive.”

Said Cobb: “We want more responsibility to fall on our shoulders. There is something motivating about being asked to do something a little extraordinary. You try to embrace that, and work toward making life easier for everybody.”

Doing so will require bounce backs from all three. The Orioles’ new analytically inclined front office loves projections, and the public versions of such metrics are bullish. They point to Cobb’s second-half numbers -- the 2.56 ERA he posted after lounging around Lake Joseph -- as closer to his career norms. They see the late dates Cashner and Cobb signed on last year and figure a full spring to prepare suits both well. They see the 41 homers Bundy allowed and forecast improvement via inertia alone.

“I quit trying to assess last season a long time ago,” Bundy said. “Every year is a new year.”

The newness is all over Orioles camp, from the front office to Hyde to Brocail, and the data-driven approach they’re preaching. Upon getting the job in December, Brocail, an analytics convert who coached the Rangers from 2016-18, immediately turned to statistics to help understand the situation he was inheriting.

“I looked at two things,” Brocail said. “2-0 and 2-1 counts.”

Orioles hurlers threw the second-most 2-0 pitches, and the fourth-most 2-1 pitches in 2018.

“Wow,” Brocail said. “The amount of pitching [from] behind was unbelievable. We’ve got to throw strikes. Bottom line. Good bad or indifferent, we need to make the other team swing the bat."

That’s as true for an array of young Orioles as it is for Cobb and Cashner, who’ve never been high strikeout guys. Throw Bundy in the mix, and all three are planning adjustments they’ll admit are necessary.

Cobb, now dealing with a groin injury, has spent the spring toying with his delivery and searching for his split-change, once one of the most dominant pitches in the American League.

Cashner is hoping a reunion with Brocail brings a repeat of their previous success together in Texas in 2017, when Cashner spiked his four-seamer for a sinker and had a career year.

Bundy’s particular focus of late has been on his curveball and changeup, with an eye toward keeping the ball in the yard. They know the collective onus is on them now more than ever.

“These three starters, when I start talking, they’re like ‘Dude, whatever, give me the information. I have to put it to use. I had a crap year last year,’” Brocail said. “That’s hard to admit, but it’s good that it came out of their mouths. Because that gives me the floodgate.”