Marlins' Ozuna: I told Fernandez not to go on fatal boat ride

Eight months have passed since Jose Fernandez accidentally plowed his boat into a jetty off South Beach, killing himself and two friends, but his former teammate Marcell Ozuna can't stop thinking about the moments and decisions leading up to the tragedy that ravaged Miami - and baseball - last autumn.

Had he accepted the ebullient Cuban's invitation to come out on the boat, after all, Ozuna likely would be gone, too. And had Fernandez listened to Ozuna, who implored the 24-year-old right-hander not to take his boat out that night, the Miami Marlins would still have their ace while Emilio Jesus Macias, 27, and Eduardo Rivero, 25, would still be coming home every night.

"Sometimes you think, 'If only he had listened a bit, he would still be here with us,'" Ozuna told USA Today's Jorge L. Ortiz in Spanish. "He was my best friend, or rather, he still is, because I always keep him in mind. As a friend, I told him not to go. He was obsessed with going. It happened because it had to happen. You don't control those things. Only God knows why things happen."

The loss of Fernandez - who was drunk behind the wheel and had cocaine in his system when his boat, traveling at top speed, crashed into the jetty Sept. 25 - has loomed over a thus-far disastrous season for the Marlins. At 16-29, Miami sits in fourth place in the National League East while receiving an MLB-worst 0.4 WAR from its pitching staff.

"We all see it," said Michael Hill, the club's president of baseball operations. "We wear 16 on our left chest every day, so it's a constant reminder that he's no longer with us. And then when you look at the struggles of our starting pitching, it's a reminder that he's not there, he's not coming back, and we have to find a way to do it without him."