Pirates GM Ben Cherington on Offense, Bubba Chandler, Oneil Cruz’s Defense

Pittsburgh Pirates general manager held a media availability at PNC Park on Friday before a 10-7 loss to the Cleveland Guardians.

The architect of the 2025 Pirates addressed a variety of topics amid the team’s 8-13 start to the season.

Among the bigger issues discussed was the struggling offense. Despite scoring seven runs on Friday night, the Pirates are near the bottom of the league in most categories.

The Pirates rank 29th in batting average (.202), 24th in on-base percentage (.288), 27th in slugging (.319), 28th in OPS (.607), 23rd in runs (74) and are tied for 23rd in home runs (16).

Despite the struggles, Cherington feels the offense is capable of more.

“The offense hasn’t got going yet. I believe it will, and there are a few components with that,” he said. “We do have some players who, at least based on our internal measurements, are hitting into a lot of bad luck. We have a bunch of guys whose surface performance is below what we’d expect based on quality of contact, things like that. So, that’s a little bit of a theme for the team. And, we also believe we have some reinforcements who, at some point, will be getting healthy and help us have a deeper lineup.”

To Cherington’s point, the Pirates are starting to show some life offensively.

Though they will need to show it can be done consistently and for a much longer stretch, the Pirates have scored 24 runs over their last five games, including a season-high 10 runs on Monday vs. the Nationals. They scored six runs on Wednesday but were blanked on Tuesday and scored only one run in a win on Thursday.

The Pirates, too, are down a couple of guys they were counting on. First baseman Spencer Horwitz has yet to suit up as he recovers from wrist/thumb surgery. Nick Gonzales uses a scooter to get around the clubhouse after suffering a non-displaced ankle fracture.

“I believe that will get better as we get healthier and deeper,” Cherington explained. “And with that, we just need individual players to heat up and get back to something closer to their norms. I believe that will happen too.”

Bubba Chandler

In addition to injuries to the lineup, the Pirates are dealing with a pair of key injuries in their starting rotation.

Jared Jones (elbow) and Johan Oviedo (recovery from Tommy John/lat), are both on the 60-day injured list. Due to both injuries, the Pirates have been using Carmen Mlodzinski, who broke into the big leagues as a reliever, in their starting rotation.

Mlodzinski continued to struggle in the Pirates’ loss on Friday night. Once again, he was good early before faltering the second and third time through the order.

If the Pirates wanted to make a change in the starting rotation, they have their top prospect on the cusp of getting called up. Bubba Chandler is in his first full season with Triple-A Indianapolis and is off to a good start. Through three starts, the right-hander has a 1.69 ERA and has struck out 18 batters. However, he’s only thrown 10.2 innings.

Because of his usage, it might be some time before Chandler reaches Pittsburgh.

The Pirates’ general manager discussed the plan for Chandler and how they will start to build him up — likely next month. Eventually, the plan is for him to pitch for the big-league club this season.

“The hopeful outcome is that he’s helping us win games in 2025 at some point,” Cherington explained. “Hopefully when that happens, we don’t want to shut that down. And so we’re managing that volume a bit early in the season by keeping him on certain pitch counts while he’s in Triple-A. At some point that will start to build, probably once we get into May, etc., then start to build closer to a normal starter’s pitch count. At that point, we’ll see where we are. We’ll see where he is.”

Oneil Cruz Defense

There’s no questioning what Oneil Cruz is capable of at the plate.

Cruz has homered in three-straight games. He hit a grand slam on Wednesday against the Nats and followed it up with a leadoff home run in the series finale. He hit another leadoff home run on Friday.

But Cruz’s transition from shortstop to center field hasn’t been smooth.

Cruz leads the league with four errors in 17 games in center field this year. He’s posted minus-8 defensive runs saved and minus-2 outs above average.

While Cherington still believes in Cruz, he noted his center fielder needs to be better.

“We’re still seeing the physical skills, the athletic skills that should add up to being a good center fielder. The speed, the arm strength, those things that can’t be taught are there and we’ve seen plays that show that, show he’s capable of doing that, and we’ve seen some days where it hasn’t been consistent enough or tight enough for sure.”