Pirates Not Questioning Oneil Cruz’s Effort Despite Recent Slump, Latest Flub

PITTSBURGH – At times this season, Oneil Cruz has looked like an All-Star caliber player who could one day be in the MVP discussion.

At other times, well, he hasn’t. 

Through his first 31 games this season, Cruz had a .911 OPS and was on a pace of 42 home runs and 73 stolen bases over the course of a 162-game season. He was the undisputed standout in an otherwise dormant offense.

But the Pirates’ center fielder has fallen on hard times of late and struggled again in the Pirates’ 6-2 loss to the Texas Rangers on Friday night at PNC Park.

At the plate, Cruz finished 0 for 5 with a pair of strikeouts, but his biggest mistake came in center field in the top of the first inning.

Rangers’ left fielder Sam Haggerty reached on a base hit up the middle, but the ball skipped past Cruz and headed towards the warning track.  The Rangers got a run on the play as Josh Smith scored from first base, and Haggerty later scored on a wild pitch after advancing to third on the two-base error. 

“He came in and missed it, manager Don Kelly said of the error. “In that moment, nobody feels worse than Oneil does. I think something that we talk about is we’re going to misplay balls. That’s going to happen.”

Instead of running back to try and retrieve the ball after it got by him, Cruz stood in place and watched right fielder Adam Frazier chase it down and fire it back towards the infield. 

Frazier had a better chance of getting to the ball first, but Cruz’s standstill created some justified flack on social media. 

“How do we react to it in the moment? And how do we react after? We talked about it after,” said Kelly. “If it gets by him, sometimes you’re not going to get it, but to go…I thought he made a good adjustment there and played hard the rest of the way, which is the expectation moving forward.”

Kelly could have benched Cruz for the misplay, but instead stuck with his center fielder. The Pirates’ manager liked the way Cruz responded.

“I think that all players deserve the opportunity to make the adjustments and have conversations like that. I feel like Oneil’s effort has been good recently in how he’s been playing and I think we saw that the rest of the game in how he got after it and I think that he deserves a chance there in finding a way to make that adjustment as you go.”

While a case could be made that Cruz’s blunder could be classified as a one-off given his defensive improvement this season, his offensive struggles have continued to build.

Since a two-hit day against the Dodgers in Los Angeles on Apr. 26 boosted his average to .267 and his OPS to .937, Cruz is batting a lowly .182 and has struck out 69 times in 182 plate appearances. In 16 games this month, Cruz is batting .164 (10 for 61) with 26 strikeouts in 71 plate appearances.

“He’s in between right now,” Kelly said of Cruz’s struggles. “It just seems like he’s not on either. He’s not on the fastball, he’s not on the offspeed. Yes, we need to get him back to that timing of being ready to hit early. I think that sometimes he’s getting caught in between maybe looking for pitches as opposed to maybe just going up there and seeing the ball and hitting the ball. 

“I think that sometimes, as a hitter looking back, when you get caught trying to see the ball so well, that your timing is all off and you start getting beat by fastballs where he’s fouling them off the other way and then being sometimes out in front of the offspeed. Just trying to find that consistent timing to be on the fastball and be ready for that so you can handle both.” 

There’s no stressing how important Cruz is to the Pirates, especially at the plate. He’s the one player who can be viewed as a true threat capable of changing the game with one swing of his thunderous bat. 

All the tools are there, just take a look at all the red on his Baseball Savant page. Cruz is among the best of the best in exit velocity, bat speed, arm strength and sprint speed among others. 

Cruz, who is nonchalant by nature, does things that could make one question his effort. For example, he often takes his time getting off the field in between innings – something multiple scouts from opposing teams have picked up on.  

But the Pirates don’t think a lack of effort is the cause for Cruz’s subpar performance, though it’s more than fair to question his effort in the first inning on Friday. Plays like that cannot happen, and standing in place after was even more troubling.