My Growing Jose Fernandez Man Crush

Jose Fernandez is the best pitcher the casual fan has never heard about, but I do not really blame them. Fernandez is the 20 year old Miami Marlins pitcher who might have been the Cy Young award winner if not for the performance of Clayton Kershaw this year.  Fernandez had not play at a higher level than A-ball before the season started in April.  He scorched the earth this season even when the Marlins are 35 games under .500.  He finished the year with an ERA at 2.17 with a WHIP of .098 and 187 strikeouts.  For anyone that's an impressive stat line, when he became legal to drink only a month and a half ago that is eye-opening especially the WHIP numbers.



The reason I talk about Fernandez today is his season ended last night in a victory against the NL East leading Atlanta Braves.  In the victory, Fernandez hit his first home run and looked at it like his name was Manny Ramirez.  To put the cherry on the sundae, he spit on the third base which made Chris Johnson all sorts of angry for no real reason. I love these young guys just busting throw old, stiff baseball 'codes and regulations.'  The Braves, a team who will be in the MLB playoffs, should get a big old cup of relax because this is really a minor thing to get upset about in baseball. Fernandez apologized after the game which is stupid, but I understand why he did it.

Charlie.