Boasting a large repertoire of pitches that included the "dead fish," a changeup that acted something like a screwball, Ojeda was an occasionally brilliant but inconsistent starter when he first came up with the Boston Red Sox. Though he led the American League with five shutouts in 1984, he finished at 12-12 with a 3.99 ERA.
Finesse pitchers are always on dangerous ground in the confines of Boston's Fenway Park, and even Ojeda's better seasons were somewhat scarred. Though he compiled consecutive double-digit win seasons with the Sox in 1983-84, he allowed a large number of baserunners and posted a 4.01 ERA over those two years. After a 9-11 record with an even 4.00 ERA in 1985, Ojeda was finally traded to the New York Mets in an eight-player deal after the 1985 season that garnered Boston Calvin Schiraldi and Wes Gardner.
Arguably the Mets' ace in 1986, Ojeda sparkled out of the shadow of Fenway's Green Monster, and led the staff in victories during the team's championship run. He went 18-5 to lead the National League in winning percentage in 1986, and his 2.57 ERA was second in the league. He won Game Two of the NLCS 5-1, and although he gave up three runs in the first five innings of Game Six, the Mets went on to win the dramatic contest in 16 innings. In the World Series, he beat his old team at Fenway in Game Three after the Red Sox had taken the first two games from the Mets. It started New York's turnaround; they became the first team ever to win the Series after losing the first two games at home. He got a no-decision in the Mets' memorable comeback in Game Six, yielding two runs in six innings.
Ojeda missed most of 1987 after a May elbow operation in which his pinched ulnar nerve was moved and chips were removed. He came back strong in 1988, but pitched with poor support and finished 10-13 despite a 2.88 ERA. In a well-documented freak accident, he missed the last three weeks of the season after severing his left middle finger while trimming the hedge at his home. The tip of the finger was deliberately re-attached crookedly; he lost feeling and strength in it, but the different angle was designed to help him continue to throw his curveball. In 1989 he dispelled fears that his career was over, and posted a 13-11 record with a respectable 3.47 ERA.
Nonetheless, Ojeda was demoted to the bullpen after starting 1990 poorly, and then traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers in December 1990 for outfielder Hubie Brooks. Landing a spot in the starting rotation, he fared better in 1991 with LA, going 12-9 with a 3.18 ERA. The following year, Ojeda thrived on the deep dimensions of Dodger Stadium, going 4-2 with a 2.40 ERA, but on the road notched just two wins and a 4.84 ERA. In September 1992, as Ojeda stumbled through the final month of the season, he was asked to skip his final start so that a young rookie named Pedro Martinez could make his major-league debut. That December, Ojeda signed with the Cleveland Indians, with whom he would easily have a shot at cracking the starting rotation.
Disaster cut the pitcher's season short on March 22, 1993. On an off-day during spring training, Ojeda and fellow Tribe pitchers Tim Crews and Steve Olin were fishing on a rented boat just south of the Indians' spring home in Winter Haven, Florida, when the vessel struck a dock, killing Olin and Crews. Ojeda was scalped and badly shaken up, but alive. He took a leave of absence from the Indians and baseball, internally dealing with the pain by taking a spontaneous solo trip to Sweden and checking himself into a psychiatric institution in Maryland. Somehow, he came back to the Indians that August, but was still affected by the tragedy, and posted a 4.40 ERA over 43 innings, the worst performance of his career.
Ojeda signed with the New York Yankees in January 1994, hoping to put the bad memories behind him and start fresh, but after two disastrous outings in April, he was released.
After a hiatus from baseball, Ojeda came back in 2001 as the pitching coach for the Mets' Single-A team Brooklyn Cyclones, who had also hired former teammate Howard Johnson as the hitting coach. (SH/AG)
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FROM THE BASEBALL CHRONOLOGY
»June 23, 1981: Dave Koza scores Marty Barrett with a bases-loaded single in the bottom of the 33rd inning, giving Pawtucket a 32 win over Rochester and ending the longest game in professional baseball history. The game had been suspended April 19th after 32 innings and eight hours, seven minutes of play, but the continuation took only 18 minutes to complete. Bob Ojeda pitches one inning to earn the win. Future ML stars Wade Boggs and Cal Ripken go a combined 6-for-25.
»May 3, 1984: Bobby Ojeda strikes out a career-high 10 batters and outduels Jack Morris as the Red Sox beat the Tigers 10, handing Detroit (19-4) a 2nd consecutive loss.
»July 27, 1984:
The Red Sox and Tigers almost match shutouts, as the Tigers win 91 and the Red Sox come back, 40. Rich Gedman's 9th inning homer in the opener off Dan Petry is the only Sox score. Wade Boggs lines four hits and Bob Ojeda allows just three hits in the nitecap to win.
»July 19, 1986: Mets players Ron Darling, Tim Teufel, Bob Ojeda, and Rick Aguilera are arrested following an early-morning fight with off-duty police officers working as security guards outside a Houston bar, but are all released in time for their Astros game that evening. On January 26th Darling and Teufel will be fined $200 while charges against Ojeda and Aguilera will be dropped.
»October 9, 1986: The Mets Bob Ojeda goes the distance even though giving up 10 hits, as New York wins 51.
»October 21, 1986: Len Dykstra's leadoff home run helps Bob Ojeda beat his old team 71 to give the Mets their first win. The Sox now lead in the World Series, 21.
»April 10, 1992: San Diego's Dave Eiland becomes the 9th pitcher in history to homer in his 1st major league at bat. He connects against Bob Ojeda of the Dodgers in an 83 Padre win. Eiland does enter the trivia books as also he serves up a homer to the first batter he faces. Rookie pitcher Jim Bullinger will also homer on his 1st ML at bat this year. The winless Eiland will end the year on another trivia record note: he joins Buster Narum and Ed Hobaugh, both in 1963, as pitchers with more homers than wins in a year.
»July 3, 1992: Dodgers P Pedro Astacio makes an impressive major league debut with a 3hit, 20 shutout over the Phillies in the 2nd game of a DH. Astacio fans 10 Phils while walking 4. The Dodgers also take the opener, 51, with Bob Ojeda topping Curt Schilling.
»March 22, 1993: Cleveland pitchers Steve Olin and Tim Crews are killed, and Bob Ojeda is seriously injured, when the motorboat in which they are riding strikes a pier on Little Lake Nellie in Florida. Crews and Olin are the first active major leaguers to die since Thurman Munson in 1979.
»August 7, 1993: Indian P Bob Ojeda returns to action following the spring training accident which took the lives of teammates Steve Olin and Tim Crews. He hurls two innings in the Orioles 8-6 win over Cleveland.
»July 13, 1997: Dennis Reyes, the first lefty in nearly five years to start a game for the Dodgers, throws six strong innings in beating the Giants, 93. The last lefty starter for L.A. was Bob Ojeda, on September 24, 1992, in a no-decision at Cincinnati.
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