Mariners Blog

Geoff Baker covers the Mariners for The Seattle Times. He provides daily coverage of the team throughout spring training, and during the season.

June 4, 2010 at 5:30 PM

Comments (0) E-mail article Print Share

Doug Fister out, Ryan Rowland-Smith in for Mariners tomorrow

Posted by Geoff Baker

We tweeted this over an hour ago, but in case you missed it, Doug Fister will not be making tomorrow's start. Instead, it will be Ryan Rowland-Smith. Fister is experiencing fatigue in his right shoulder and the Mariners figure that's why his velocity was down his last time out.

Fister and Jason Vargas are both on-pace to throw well over 200 innings and the Mariners realize they might have to clamp down on that a bit. Manager Don Wakamatsu said today that he'll likely have to keep Fister to under 100 pitches per outing once his arm improves.

"Again, a young pitcher going deep into the ballgame as he has, you kind of anticipate that at some point he's either going to have a dead arm, or some fatigue,'' Wakamatsu said. "It just happened to be right now.''

Fister is expected to make his next start in the finale of the Texas series next week.

Rowland-Smith will be curtailed a bit tomorrow, limited to between 75 and 90 pitches.

Photo Credit: AP

Wakamatsu said Fister has had this type of tightness and fatigue in his shoulder before. Most pitchers go through it at some stage. The difference is, Fister and Vargas have yet to throw nearly the amount of innings they're both on pace for.

Fister threw 173 innings combined in the majors and minors last season, while Vargas threw 143 1/3 both with the Mariners and Class AAA Tacoma.

"Both these guys, the pace they're going, you're looking at 240 innings,'' Wakamatsu said. "So, you know at some point, through fatigue, or by choice, you'll try to regulate that workload.''

In injury news, Jack Wilson will go out on a rehabilitation assignment on Sunday in AAA and play about five or six innings.

Josh Bard will go to Tacoma on Sunday and start working out, then maybe get into some games later on in the week.

Adam Moore is to go to Arizona to play in some simulated games first and then could be inserted in games with Tacoma by the middle of next week.

Mike Sweeney is still day-to-day with back stiffness, which is why he's not in there today. Ryan Langerhans (alive and well) gets to play in LF, while Milton Bradley moves to DH and Matt Tuiasosopo gets to play first base.

E-mail article Print Share

Comments

No comments have been posted to this article.

Read all comments / Share your thoughts

Mariners Blog

Doug Fister out, Ryan Rowland-Smith in for Mariners tomorrow

The Seattle Times Company

Services

News

Marketplace

Subscriber Services

Other editions