MLB

Doug Fister Just Can’t Catch A Break; Mariners Pitcher Loses On Three-Ball Walk

Doug Fister has the worst run support among all 115 qualified pitchers in the majors. That’s on his Mariners teammates. But Saturday night, he could point to an umpiring mistake as being the key factor in his 1-0 loss to the San Diego Padres, a result that drops his season record to 3-9 despite a 3.12 ERA and 1.18 WHIP.

A 5th-inning at-bat by Cameron Maybin earned the Padres center fielder a walk despite Fister only throwing three balls. Maybin later in in the inning was driven in by Alberto Gonzalez for the only run of the game. Watch the video, to which we’ve added a handy counter before each pitch:

Of course, if Fister’s Mariner teammates had managed to score even a single run, Fister would have been off the hook. (Not to mention the futility of using wins as a meaningful pitching metric.) Yet it’s amazing that no one — not Fister, not the announcers, nobody — managed to notice the mistake.