SEATTLE — Several weeks after it seemed Doug Fister might be hitting a wall in his first full season as a major league pitcher, the wall hit him Thursday night in his final start.
Fister allowed 13 hits in 51⁄3 innings and committed a balk that allowed the Oakland A’s to score their first run in an 8-1 victory over the Seattle Mariners at Safeco Field.
He finished with a 6-14 record, including 11 losses in 19 starts since he spent most of June on the disabled list because of right shoulder fatigue.
“It’s a growing year. It’s something new to me, to be up here a full year,” Fister said. “I look to grow on that next year, set some goals a little higher next year and be ready for it.”
Along with Fister, the Mariners hit their own wall in a sloppy game that featured the balk, two errors, a wild pitch and a botched pickoff play. The Mariners wasted a bases-loaded opportunity in the fourth inning and scored only on Greg Halman’s RBI grounder in the eighth.
The loss was the Mariners’ 98th this season, meaning they must win two of their final three games to avoid the fifth season in franchise history — and the second in the past two years — with at least 100 losses.
Fister’s 28th start this season followed a pattern similar to several others, when one bad inning hurt him. This time it was the fifth after he’d held the A’s scoreless despite allowing six hits through four innings.
Then everything went wrong.
The A’s scored four runs with two outs, aided when Fister lost his balance and committed a balk with the bases loaded as he prepared to deliver a pitch to Mark Ellis.
Fister faced three batters in the sixth inning and they all hit him hard, including Chris Carter, whose two-run homer gave the A’s a 6-0 lead.
It was Fister’s final hitter of the season.
Workload has been a concern with Fister, whose 171 innings this season fell two short of the 173 he pitched last year in the major and minor leagues combined. Still, the shoulder problem in June stalled what had been a nice start to the season, when Fister was 3-3 through his first 10 starts.
After he came back from the disabled list, Fister went 3-11 with a 5.24 ERA.
“It’s a learning process. I’ve got a lot of time to think about it and learn from it,” Fister said. “I feel like I belong here. I’ve got to go out there and prove it every day.”
Read Kirby Arnold’s blog on the Mariners at www.heraldnet.com/marinersblog
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