Boras had flown in from California and spent the day with Fernandez’s mother. On Sunday, after an emotional news conference following the cancellation of their game with Atlanta, the Marlins had visited Fernandez’s mother and grandmother as a team.

The wrenching scene tapped a deep emotional well for Manager Don Mattingly. In 1969, his oldest brother, Jerry, was killed at 23 in a construction accident. Mattingly was 8, and when a man from the construction company came to the house with the news, his parents sent him outside to play, to shield him. As the team tried to comfort Fernandez’s family, Mattingly’s personal anguish flooded back.

“I was not really a part of all that, what was going on, but now I know what was going on,” Mattingly said. “I knew the pain. I could see my mom and my sister-in-law, what they were going through. It was awful.”

Marlins reliever A. J. Ramos said he was glad, at least, to have told Fernandez he loved him. Fernandez was open like that, Ramos said, always telling teammates how he felt. But Sunday’s visit hit him hard.

“That was easily one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do,” Ramos said. “I think when you see a mother lose a child, let alone someone like Jose, all they’ve been through, the struggle they had to get here, and when they get here, they were pretty much set. And then this happens. I wish I could say some words to her just to make her feel a little bit better.”

The Marlins’ owner, Jeffrey Loria, was in New York when he learned of Fernandez’s death Sunday morning. He was sitting in the same chair, he said, as he was when he found out his sister had died. The chair is gone now, said Loria, who flew in on Sunday night and visited Fernandez’s mother after the team did.