Fraser Gets to Be a Hit With Batters : Angel Pitcher Continually Is Winged in the Line of Duty

Willie Fraser is becoming a marked man around the American League these days, but it has nothing to do with the Angel pitcher’s penchant for giving up home runs.

It has plenty to do with his recent knack for getting in the way of rapidly moving baseballs while he’s on the mound.

Fraser wears a halo on his jersey, but it might as well be a bull’s-eye for opposing hitters.

For the second time in his last three starts, the right-hander was hit in the line of duty. Seattle left fielder Phil Bradley lined a shot off Fraser’s back in the sixth inning of the Angels’ 4-3 victory over the Mariners Saturday night.

Unlike Wade Boggs’ drive that knocked Fraser from the Fenway Park mound to the trainer’s room in the fourth inning of a game on July 20, Bradley’s ball wasn’t hit hard enough to retire Fraser Saturday night.

But it did warrant a standing eight-count, as Angel Manager Gene Mauch, pitching coach Marcel Lachemann and a team trainer came out to have a look. But Fraser remained in the game and retired the Mariners in the sixth.

Fraser started the seventh but gave up a second home run to Jim Presley and then gave way to reliever DeWayne Buice, who shut out the Mariners over the final three innings for the save.

Fraser earned his first win since July 8 and improved to 7-7, as the Angels pulled to within 1 1/2 games of the first-place Minnesota Twins.

There were no souvenir welts on Fraser’s body, like the one Boggs left on his hip two weeks ago, but Bradley’s drive did have the pitcher wondering afterward.

“I think I’m playing with a magnet,� Fraser said. “But this one didn’t hit me hard. I should have caught the thing. It just grazed off my tricep and hit off my ribs.�

Fellow pitcher Jack Lazorko thought this all to be quite amusing.

“He’ll be sleeping with a pitching screen in front of his bed tonight so he doesn’t get hit with a line drive,� Lazorko quipped.

The jokes ended when conversation turned to Presley’s two solo homers, which cleared the center-field fence and accounted for the 21st and 22nd home runs that Fraser has allowed this season.

“I made two bad mistakes and hung two sliders,� Fraser said. “He’s a good bad breaking-ball hitter and he took advantage of it.�

Otherwise, Fraser looked good, as he struck out three and walked two. Seattle scored its other run on Donell Nixon’s RBI single in the fifth inning, but Fraser escaped the jam when Angel center fielder Devon White threw out Harold Reynolds at the plate for the third out.

“I felt good tonight,� Fraser said. I didn’t have any problems and kept my velocity up. With the consistency of our bullpen, Gene just thought it was time to get me out of there.�

Fraser had thrown only 82 pitches when Mauch pulled him in the seventh, perhaps, because Fraser has had some arm problems lately.

He came out of his last start, against Detroit on July 26, in the sixth inning when he complained of stiffness in his right shoulder, and he had been having problems with what he termed “a tired shoulder� earlier in the month.

Fraser has thrown only four complete games in 17 starts this season, but he said Saturday night that the arm is fine.

“Every year I go through a state where my arm gets tired, usually in the middle of the season or later,� Fraser said. “But I’d have to say that’s behind me now, and I’ve been able to pitch through it.

“It’s not a question of how many pitches I can throw in a game, I just go as hard and long as I can. Some nights, that will mean 100 pitches and some nights it will be 130 pitches. It varies.�