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Clayton Kershaw struggled in his return, but Jose Fernandez shined again.
Saturday’s Say Hey, baseball takes a look at one ace making a return from a long layoff and another doing what he normally does at home.
Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports
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Clayton Kershaw made his return to the Dodgers on Friday evening after an extended stay on the Disabled List. Naturally, it’s always a good thing to see a perennial Cy Young candidate come back from a rare trip to the DL, but the Dodgers were only able to get three innings out of their ace last night. Meanwhile, there was another ace in the stadium at Marlins Park, and he ended up spoiling Kershaw’s return and completely stole the show on the night.
It’s no secret that Jose Fernandez is an extremely talented pitcher, and he gets even better when he’s pitching at home. His ERA and FIP at Marlins Park this season are 1.77 and 1.74, respectively. Those are both microscopic numbers, and he lived up to them with a dominating performance against the Dodgers on Friday night. After running into a little bit of trouble in the first inning, Fernandez completely overwhelmed the Dodgers for the rest of the night, as he finished the game with seven innings pitched, only three hits allowed, and a career-high of 14 strikeouts.
Jose Fernandez’s gem of a performance was in complete contrast to Kershaw’s return. Kershaw may have struggled, but the Dodgers can somewhat afford for their ace to settle back into form. As long as he’s good by October, then the Dodgers should be alright. Meanwhile, the Marlins need every win that they can get in order to keep their wafer-thin postseason hopes alive, which means that they’re going to need Fernandez to keep on delivering performances like this during the final stretch of this season.
- Congratulations are in order for the Cubs, who have now achieved consecutive 90-win seasons for the first time since the late 1920s.
- Speaking of the Cubbies, it’s only natural to dream about a potential World Series at Wrigley. Just how expensive would those tickets be?
- Now it’s time for your update on the Mario Kart battle that is the AL East race. The Red Sox clobbered the Blue Jays 13-3 on Friday.
- Despite Toronto’s loss, the future is still bright in the long-term due to the deadline deal that they pulled.
- Meanwhile, the Yankees have now won six straight and are all of a sudden not looking as evil — maybe even likable?
- The Orioles dropped a 4-3 game against the Tigers, who are still very much in the postseason race themselves.
- Whether you put much stock in the Pitcher Win stat or not, who would’ve thought that Rick Porcello would be the first to get 20 wins this season?
- The Royals saw their tiny chances of making the playoffs get even smaller with a loss to the White Sox.
- The Giants are still in the NL playoff race despite stumbling through the second half of the season. What would things be like if this was how they started the season?
- Coco Crisp at his best is nowhere near Rickey Henderson at his best, but A’s fans love Crisp like he was Rickey, anyways.
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