In what has been a short career so far, the Miami Marlins young ace Jose Fernandez has been incredible. Fernandez debuted in 2013 and all he did in that time was go 12-6 with a 2.19 ERA. Those numbers earned him a lot of praise amongst Major League Baseball writers, including the Rookie of the Year Award and finishing in third place that year in voting for the National League Cy Young Award.
Oh, and to boot, he was also an All-Star in that very memorable 2013 season. 2014 was no different for Fernandez from the start. He started eight games before learning that his right elbow would require Tommy John surgery. In those eight starts, he went 4-2 with a 2.44 ERA. He is not a flash in the pan but rather a proven ace. Hopefully, for his sake, the elbow is ready to go on July 2nd and he can get back to being the Marlins ace.
Tommy John Surgery has become commonplace in baseball, you could even call it an epidemic. This surgery used to come as a scare to most pitchers that would have to go through it, but nowadays it's making pitchers come back stronger and often times even better.
Fernandez has been out about 14 months but his velocity on his fastball is back up around 99 mph. If he still isn't ready now, he is very close. With the velocity back up where it is, July 2nd should allow Fernandez plenty of time to get his pitch count back towards that of a Major League pitcher in his rehab outings.
For the Marlins, this is big news because their pitching staff has not been as good as they would have liked. The Marlins are in the bottom half in all of baseball when it comes to team ERA. Mat Latos has been a disappointment to the Marlins, pitching himself to a record of 2-4 with a 5.44 ERA thus far. Tom Koehler and Dan Haren have been the only bright spots to the Marlins rotation seeing that they are the only two who have ERA's below 4.00 so far.
Fernandez can provide a boost to the Marlins pitching staff and ultimately help them win more games placing them back in the postseason race. They are in a bad position right now but they cannot be counted out. They are nine games under .500 but they sit just eight games back of the first place New York Mets in the National League East.
It is too early to write the Marlins off so if they can sustain their ground, or maybe even pick up a little bit of ground before July 2nd, Fernandez can help them chase down a Wild Card spot or maybe even first place, but that's more of a longshot.
