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Ross Ohlendorf
From BR Bullpen
Curtis Ross Ohlendorf
- Bats Right, Throws Right
- Height 6' 4", Weight 235 lb.
- School Princeton University
- High School St. Stephen's Episcopal High School
- Debut September 11, 2007
- Born August 8, 1982 in Austin, TX USA
[edit] Biographical Information
Ross Ohlendorf's high school coach was Keith Moreland, who convinced him to focus on baseball rather than basketball; Ohlendorf said in 2011 that he would have never picked baseball had it not been for Moreland.
Ohlendorf was selected by the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 4th round of the 2004 amateur draft. He was signed by scout Greg Lonigro and made his pro debut that summer.
He was traded to the New York Yankees as part of a deal for Randy Johnson in January 2007 and made his major league debut with the Yankees in September of that year, pitching 6 games out of the bullpen, and being used once in the Division Series against the Cleveland Indians.
He continued to pitch out of the Yankees' bullpen early in 2008, then was sent to the Pittsburgh Pirates at the trading deadline in the deal that netted the Yankees Xavier Nady and Damaso Marte and Pittsburgh Jeff Karstens and Jose Tabata. He was converted to a starter by the Pirates, making 5 starts with an 0-3 record and an ERA over 6.00 at the tail end of the 2008 season. He had a promising first full season as a starter in the majors in 2009, posting 11 wins and a 3.92 ERA in 29 starts; he improved as the season progressed and his ERA was an excellent 2.83 in 11 second-half starts. He had a very tough year in 2010 however. A victim of poor offensive support, he put up a won-loss record of 1-11 inspite of a decent 4.07 ERA, and was also limited to 21 starts because of back and shoulder problems. In spite of that poor record, he won his salary arbitration dispute with the Pirates the following off-season, being awarded the salary of $2.025 million he was seeking; the Pirates had offered $1.4 million.
Ohlendorf, a graduate of Princeton University with a degree in operations research and financial engineering, does not have the typical interests of a ballplayer. He claims to read history books to relax before starts and had an internship in the financial department of the University of Texas at Austin, located near his father's cattle ranch. In the 2009-10 off-season, he spent 10 weeks as an intern in the US Department of Agriculture in Washington, DC, doing cost analysis of programs to trace diseases in livestock. He got to meet Michelle Obama in this role, which he arranged through former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack, a Pittsburgh native.
