Doug Fister began his season as a Class AA reliever, but after two shutout appearances jumped to Class AAA, where he slid into the Tacoma bullpen.

When the Mariners asked him to start, he made 17 starts for the Rainiers, going 6-4 with a 4.13 earned run average - 2-2 with a 2.35 ERA over his last six starts.

Tonight, he starts for the first time as a big leaguer, facing a White Sox team desperate for a win to keep their wild card hopes alive.

Should the Mariners win, they'd match their season-best by moving seven games above .500 again.
A control pitcher whose minor league command was marvelous, Fister needs to stay ahead in the count and give Seattle innings.

It's Fister vs. John Danks.

Nerves and outs

It's pretty clear Fister is a bit nervous tonight - he's walked two and hit a batter in three innings - but he's been toughest when he had to be.

With two on and one out in the third, for instance, Fister got Jermaine Dye on a pop up and Jim Thome on a ground ball.

That's good pitching for anyone.

Using a fastball that's topped out at 89 mph and a curve that touches 75 mph, Fister has changed speeds on both and thrown a changeup, too.

So far, good job despite a bit of tentativeness at times.

Danks, meanwhile, has matched him zero for zero.
After three: No score

That's one

Adrian Beltre doubled to right center field one out into the fourth inning, and Russell Branyan singled him home - Branyan's club-leading 68th RBI.

The kid has a lead, and starts the fifth inning with 63 pitches thrown.

After four: Mariners 1, White Sox 0

Nice job, lad

Manager Don Wakamatsu talked about wanting Fister to have a 'positive' experience in his first start, which translated to getting him out of the game while pitching well.

In the sixth inning, having allowed one hit - an infield single - and no runs, Fister made it an easy call.

The right-hander threw 94 pitches and has the rest of his career to pitch into the seventh or eighth inning. For now, he's made his impression, taken a big ovation into the dugout with him.

Figure the bullpen has it from here.

In the sixth: Mariners 1, White Sox 0

The bullpen takes the seventh

Miguel Batista walked the first man he faced, and the Safeco Field crowd got a bit restless.

The next batter, Carlos Quentin, grounded into a double play. Then Batista walked Alexi Ramirez. And Chris Getz.

Lowe got Scott Podsednik.

In the seventh: Mariners 1, White Sox 0

Lowe does it again

Lowe's 52nd appearance of the year is over, and he ended it striking out Jim Thome to wind down the eighth inning.

Seattle is three outs from win No. 60, and David Aardsma will try to get them.

In the eighth: Mariners 1, White Sox 0

The ninth - yike!

Aardsma in, and Paul Konerko flied to the wall in center field - a shot that had 19,385 fans gasping.

Then A.J. Pierzinsky walked. Quentin singled. Ramirez homered into the Chicago bullpen.

The Mariners got a two-out single from Beltre in their half of the inning to get the game to Branyan - their home run and RBI leader.

It's a final: White Sox 3, Mariners 1

Long before he had 623 home runs or 1,809 RBI, before the Gold Gloves and that '95 American League Championship Series - when he hit five home runs in as many games - Ken Griffey Jr. had my admiration.

He made me laugh in the spring of '88, did it all over again in the spring of '09, and in between showed his humanity a few hundred times.

I told Ken once that his love of children was genuinely touching, and his response was serious.

"I love kids," he said. "It's only adults I ever have trouble with."

When the Mariners first initiated that pre-game practice of putting a youngster at every position on the field during introductions, it was Junior who made it a spectacle.

Jogging out to center field, he was supposed to do what all the Mariners were asked to do - sign a ball and let the kid hustle off the field.

Junior jogged out there on the Kingdome turf, tackled the boy awaiting him and wrestled for what seemed like forever.

The crowd roared. The kid? He all but floated off the field when he was finally freed.

Griffey was so good with Make-A-Wish Foundation children, so unassuming and willing to give of his time, that the organization put him on its promotional literature for years.

That never changed, good years or bad. This season, he's batting .223 with 12 home runs, 37 RBI.

Yet when a young girl with a life-threatening illness appeared on the field during batting practice, there was Griffey, on one knee posing for family pictures with her.

Then, as her nervous parents watched, Griffey said 'Come with me!' and walked off the field, down the dugout tunnel and into the Seattle clubhouse.

The girl followed him. Her parents, the team public relations staff and the media did not - which was the point.

Junior sat her down at his locker and talked with her, and when she emerged minutes later, it was with a signed ball, a signed bat and the kind of smile that all but breaks your heart.

Few people in the world can do that for a child they don't know - put that kind of smile on their face. Griffey can. He's always been able to.

After seeing it happen more than 100 times, it's still affecting. When Junior bent over and whispered into her ear, then trotted off, he'd made a fan for life.

And reminded another why you have to love him.

OK, here's your Seattle Mariners starting lineup for tonights game against the Chicago White Sox and lefty John Danks.

Ichiro RF
Franklin Gutierrez CF
Jose Lopez 2B
Mike Sweeney DH
Adrian Beltre 3B
Russell Branyan 1B
Jack Wilson SS
Kenji Johjima C
Michael Saunders LF
Doug Fister RHP

I have a confession to make, my name is Ryan and I Twitter. It's not something I meant to happen. It just kind of did one day. It started with one, then grew to a few tweets and now it's an every day thing. I've already been labeled a blogger, a child and a miscreant, in no particular order. But now I'm a tweeter, a twitterer or twit, however it is labeled.

First it was the blog, then it was facebook and now it's Twitter.

Despite my initial reluctance followed by absolute refusal to Twitter, I've relented and found it to be pretty entertaining.

I joined it a few weeks ago - @TNTmariners - and began posting news, links to Mariners stories and other baseball news, repeated links to the greatest piece of audio of this season and of course random observations and comments about games, Miguel Batista's hair and David Aardsma's boil.

It's actually kind of fun.

But I'm not alone. As has been well documented Matt Hasselbeck twitters, Jon Brockman twitters, Steve Sarkisian twitters. But on the Mariners, the only person that twitters is Ryan Rowland-Smith.

Does that surprise me? Not in a second.

The Mariners are an eclectic mix of personalities and backgrounds. From Ken Griffey Jr. good-natured teasing of clothing choices, to Mike Sweeney's earnestness and overall positive attitude, to Rob Johnson's small-town Montana outlook, to Erik Bedard's warm and outgoing and friendly, well, ok, maybe not so much there.

But of all the players on the roster, there might not be a more open, honest, interesting, well-spoken, well-liked and easier person to talk to than Rowland-Smith. The big Aussie is friendly, always willing to talk, has interesting opinions and has a good sense of not only himself, but of baseball and the larger world outside of it.

Because of that, it was really no surprise that Rowland-Smith has embraced on-line avenues of social networking like blogging and twitter, which brings him closer to baseball fans.

A year ago, Rowland-Smith's blog at Prolebrity.com became popular with fans as he offered a glimpse into his personal life. This year, he's joined the Twitter nation under the name hyphen18 and so far he has 1,667 followers. Me? I got like 150. I think we can understand the discrepancies for obvious reasons.

"I got talked into it," Rowland-Smith.

ESPN's Stacey Pressman, a friend of RRS, got him into blogging at prolebrity.com and then talked him into Twittering.

"She said you gotta set up a twitter account and just start writing random stuff," Rowland-Smith said. "I started doing it and getting followers."

It's not anything profound. In fact, he often worries about what to write.

"Half of the time, I can’t think of anything worthy writing about," he admitted. "I think, 'Who the hell wants to read this?' If I think something I can write or someone interesting I’ll write it."

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