MIAMI • In all fairness, it's not as if anybody at the ballpark has more experience playing baseball against Jose Fernandez than Aledmys Diaz.
The two Cubans grew up on the same street -- separated by four or five hours in Santa Clara, Cuba -- and it was Diaz's father and uncle who brought baseball into Fernandez's life. The Marlins righthander has said that if it weren't for Diaz's uncle he wouldn't have played baseball, he wouldn't have continued to play when he moved to the States, he wouldn't have won the Rookie of the Year award, emerged as the Marlins' ace, and wouldn't have all this success at Marlins Park.