Fernandez fine after collision in warmups

MIAMI -- Strange things happen during batting practice sometimes.

The Marlins went through that on Friday night in warmups before the series opener. But the team avoided a potentially perilous incident when ace Jose Fernandez collided with Ty Hill, the strength and conditioning coach.

Fernandez, scheduled to start on Sunday, is fine. But he initially mildly bruised his left (non-throwing) shoulder.

"It was a little accident with Ty," Fernandez said on Saturday. "I was running my sprints and he came back to get a ball, and kind of got in my way. We bumped into each other. No problem. We're both fine. It's no problem."

Pitchers routinely run pregame in the outfield. Fernandez was doing his sprints near the left-field wall at a time some of the workers at the Cleveland club (located on the other side of the wall) were throwing baseballs back onto the field.

Commonly, some of the workers at the Clevelander throw the home run baseballs from batting practice back onto the field to be collected. One of the tosses backed Hill up to where Fernandez was running.

"It was kind of a train wreck out there," manager Mike Redmond said. "He's fine. They both went down."