Fister in circle of trust
Veteran righty on ace-like run
When spring training began, the Red Sox had three aces: Chris Sale, David Price and Rick Porcello.
When the All-Star break hit, they were down to one, Sale.
Now, with three weeks to go, Sale still is an ace but one who’s also been fading (4.57 ERA since Aug. 1).
The good news is there’s one more starter on the Red Sox staff who can lay claim to the ace label.
The difference between Doug Fister and Sale is the former doesn’t need any qualifiers. Fister is the real thing, people, and last night’s gem — his fourth consecutive start of sevenplus innings allowing two or fewer runs — should be enough to cement his status as the closest thing to a sure thing the Red Sox can put on the mound at this point in the season.
If you’ve been waiting for his pixie dust to wear off, you can hit pause because 33-year-old veterans with Fister’s resume are not flukes when they go on runs like this one.
His arm is relatively fresh, and he has a 4-2 record and 2.60 ERA in nine postseason appearances, eight of them starts.
It’s not just his past four starts, in which he has allowed only five earned runs in 29 innings (that’s a 1.55 ERA). Fister started a little slow, but his overall ERA after 10 starts this season is 3.61. He’s not going to receive any Cy Young votes like Sale, but that’s irrelevant when it comes to the Red Sox’ 2017 team goals.
What he has done is inject himself into the conversation as one of the pillars the Red Sox will lean on when their almost likely playoff run begins.
“It’s a process, and (I’m) trying to keep continually moving in the right direction,” Fister said. “As the first inning showed, I’ve still got a lot of work to do, but (I’m) still heading in the right direction.”
If by “I’ve still got a lot of work to do” Fister means he needs to stop giving up runs in the first inning like he did last night — and in each of his other three first innings in the past four starts, meaning he has given up zero runs in 26 of his innings after the first — he’s being his usual modest self.
Tweaking that habit seems like an awfully short to-do list.
“You know, he gets in the rhythm of the game, it takes him an inning, it takes him an inning to find his release point,” manager John Farrell said. “It’s been uncanny how similar the beginning of games are and how he finishes out. I think, to me, it’s more finding that release point, and then he stays out of the middle of the plate, and then he gets a feel for that curveball, which is, as we’ve come to find out, that’s a key pitch for him.”
Fister has a judo black belt when it comes to deflecting attention from himself and reflecting it back to his teammates.
Considering the team needed him to go deep after the bullpen was exhausted by Tuesday night’s 19-inning marathon, the respect is mutual.
“The boys were tired,” Fister said. “That’s a 19-inning ballgame. That’s a lot of time on the field and not a lot of time to rest.”
With the track sloppy from a misty, driving rain, Fister pitched as if conditions were excellent.
“There was times where it was a little sloppy and a little bit slippery, but for the most part, the field crew did an excellent job keeping it ready,” Fister said. “College coach once told me, ‘You’ve just gotta be a mudder. You’ve just gotta go out there and dig and battle and do what you have to do.’ So that’s one of those things that everyone is playing with it, and their pitcher has to pitch in it too. So take it for what it’s worth. You just have to go out and do it.”
Fister’s doing it all right, and at this time in the season when the Red Sox have sputtered against the Yankees and their hold on the AL East has been in jeopardy of evaporating given how much their level of play has deteriorated, it’s been Fister, not Sale, who continually has come to their rescue.
“Credit to Doug Fister, plain and simple,” Farrell said. “I think he’s gained a lot of confidence each time he’s taken the mound in the rotation. We’ve talked about the adjustments he had to make, and (he) did those, and he’s gone out and pitched as a veteran does. (He) knows himself, knows how to navigate traffic when it’s on the base paths. You love the body language, the mound presence and the conviction to the pitches. So he has earned that trust by the way he’s gone out and pitched.”
In a way unlike anyone else right now, in Fister, the Red Sox trust.