Veteran left-hander Brian Fuentes has officially announced his retirement from baseball, reports Sean Lynch of the Merced Sun-Star:

Fuentes announced his retirement last weekend, ending a 12-year career.

"Ultimately, I was just having trouble with the time away from my family," Fuentes said. "I've been playing baseball for all of their lives, but I'd never been so far away as when I was in St. Louis.

"I think at one point I went like two months without seeing them. Coming home and being able to put them to bed at night made me realize what I was missing."

Fuentes, 37, began the 2012 season with the Oakland Athletics, just miles from his Merced home, but was released by the club in July after a rough first half of the season. Fuentes then signed with the St. Louis Cardinals, but appeared in just six games with the club before leaving the team to deal with "family issues", spending the remainder of the season on the restricted list and forgoing his salary.

The side-arm left-hander spent twelve years in the big leagues with six different organizations, posting a 3.62 ERA and 9.4 K/9 in his career and racking up two hundred four saves altogether.