DETROIT -- Doug Fister is the last person in the Tigers clubhouse that would ever show any self-pity.
Alex Avila was happy to do it for him.
Fister took a shutout into the ninth inning, but the Rays rallied for three runs to beat the Tigers 3-0 Wednesday night. In his last three starts, Fister is 0-2 despite a 2.42 ERA. The Tigers have scored a total of two runs in the three games, including two straight shutouts.
"It seems like there is always one pitcher who gets caught up in something like this -- where the offense just can't get him any runs," said Avila. "Right now, Doug's been going through that for his last few starts. He's getting the brunt of it, and you feel for him."
Avila's right, because the Tigers offense hasn't been in a huge slump lately. They've scored 10 runs twice in the last four games, and have had several others with five or six runs since the start of Fister's bad luck. They've just haven't been consistent. They've been shut out six times this season -- four more than all of last year -- and three of those have come in the last eight games.
Jim Leyland, though, didn't think Wednesday's loss could be pinned on the offense.
"There are games where you get shut down, and you spend the whole time wondering why you aren't getting any offense against the guy," he said. "This wasn't like this. This might have been the best game anyone has pitched against us all season."
It was Alex Cobb who had the Tigers hitters struggling all night. He pitched 7 2/3 shutout innings, striking out seven, and at least one Tiger still wasn't sure how he did it.
"He had his changeup really working or his splitter, whatever that is," Torii Hunter said. "He threw me at least four or five of those, and as soon as you try to swing, the bottom drops out of it. It was like Bugs Bunny pitching. I hate tipping my cap to anyone, but when you can put a goose egg up on a team like ours, that's what you have to do."
The only good news for the Tigers might have been that Avila had two of Detroit's six hits. Avila is battling a season-long slump that brought him into the game with a .169 batting average, but he walked in the third inning, doubled in the seventh and singled in the ninth.
"Alex really swung the bat well tonight, and that's good to see," said Leyland, who had hinted that Avila might have to go down to Toledo to fix his mechanics. "He had some really nice at-bats against a really tough pitcher."
Avila is the first to acknowledge that he still has work to do -- he's only hitting .200 in the seven games since Leyland talked about the Mud Hens -- but he thinks he's getting there.
"I felt good out there today," he said. "I'm just trying to put together some strong at-bats instead of giving so many of them away. I don't know how well it is going to work, and I have no idea where I'm going to be at the end of the season, but I know that it won't be due to any lack of hard work."
Avila also helped Fister with a defensive play that will end up on both highlight reels and blooper reels for the next few weeks. With one out in the third, the Rays had runners on the corners and Sam Fuld hit a hard grounder between first and second. Prince Fielder made a diving stop and threw to the plate. Jose Lobaton stopped in his tracks between third and the plate, and started slowly retreating. The goal was to stall long enough for Yunel Escobar to hustle from first to third, while Fuld raced to second.
Just as it looked like Lobaton was going to pull it off, he suddenly froze. That allowed Avila to tag him, then lunge past Miguel Cabrera to take Escobar as he pulled into third to complete a rare 3-2-2 double play.
"That was certainly unusual," Avila laughed. "Prince made a great play, and then I thought his throw was going to hit Fuld's bat, but I got it and ran Lobaton back. He froze for a second, so I was able to tag everyone."
Leyland said that he'd never pulled off a play like that in his minor-league catching career, but he's seen it.
"Usually, you end up with both guys on the bag, you tag both of them, and the wrong guy starts heading for the dugout," he said. "That's how you normally get the two outs."
In the end, it worked, and Fister appreciated the effort. He would have appreciated a well-placed home run even more.
