Here comes Oneil Cruz

Oneil Cruz is on a tear. The Pirates 6-foot-7 shortstop is slashing .356/.400/.644 with a 1.044 OPS since June 30, recording six multi-hit games in that stretch — more than he had the entire month of June. His hard-hit rates, which are always outlandish, have grown in absurdity: His 67.7% Hard Hit% in the month of July leads MLB, right ahead of Rafael Devers, Marcell Ozuna, and Kyle Schwarber. 

Hard contact is, of course, only useful when you actually make contact, and swing-and-miss has been a problem for Cruz since he arrived. His K% ranks in the bottom 4% of MLB, a slight improvement from his first full season in 2022, when he ranked in the 1st percentile. 

And left-handed pitching has, in particular, given Cruz fits: In 86 AB, he has struck out 31 times. Cruz entered play on Saturday slashing just .146/.177/.268 against LHP. 

It’s easy to forget sometimes that Cruz is just 25-years-old, and he’s already matched his previous season-high total of games played at this level (87). While there is certainly room to grow, there is plenty of time to do so, too.

And on Saturday, we caught a glimpse of just how good Cruz already is, and how good he can be, perhaps even in the near future. The red-hot Cruz, propelling the scorching-hot Buccos, accomplished two separate feats that no left-handed hitter had done this season.

Cristopher Sanchez drew the start on Saturday for the Phillies, fresh off a sensational first half (2.82 ERA) that resulted in his first career All-Star appearance. The 27-year-old stymies LHB — .510 OPS with a mere .260 SLG — thanks in part to his devastating changeup. Entering Saturday, lefties were hitting just .083 (1-for-12) off Sanchez’s changeup, without an extra base hit. 

When Cruz stepped in against Sanchez in the sixth inning, he had already struck out twice. Through those two at-bats, Cruz received three changeups — one for a called strike, one a swinging strike, and one a foul ball. The Pirates led 1-0, and had two men on base. 

Overall, Cruz handles changeups well: His .391 wOBA is elite, as is his .565 SLG against the pitch. But Sanchez’s changeup is one of the game’s best, touting uncanny movement. It has 24% more horizontal movement than similar MLB changeups at his velocity (12th-best in baseball), and 17% more vertical drop — also good for 12th in MLB. Only three LHB have even managed to put the pitch in play this season 

In a 2-1 count, Sanchez threw a changeup middle-in, and Cruz — whose 78.2 mph bat speed grades out in the 100th percentile — got his barrel around to it. He whacked it off the base of the wall in right field, a cool 90.1 mph, run-scoring double to pad the Pirates’ lead. Pretty good for the first XBH against Sanchez’s changeup by a LHB this season. 

One feat down, one to go. 

In the eighth inning, Cruz dug in against another All-Star, left-handed reliever Matt Straham. Straham has been a revelation out of the Phillies’ bullpen, posting a 1.93 ERA across 40 games. The two had never faced each other before. 

Straham has reverse splits (.498 OPS vs. RHB compared to a .668 OPS vs. LHB), but left-handed hitters can’t seem to hit his four-seam fastball; they have a .291 wOBA with 1 XBH against the pitch. In fact, the key to Straham’s success has been limiting exceptionally loud results — he allowed just one HR in the first half, to Baltimore’s All-Star outfielder, Anthony Santander. 

So, Cruz came to the plate with a runner on, hoping to add insurance. He worked the count to 2-2 — refusing to chase a fastball and fouling off a tough slider — before getting a middle-middle fastball. You can probably guess where this is going. Cruz hammered it at 112mph, sending it 422 feet to the opposite field, a souvenir ticketed for the Pirates bullpen. The highest EV that Straham’s four-seamer had allowed before that was 106.2mph. Cruz’s mark might stick for a while. 

In two at-bats, Cruz counteracted the strength of two All-Star pitchers. He solved Sanchez’s changeup, and attacked Straham’s fastball — two pitches that, to that point, had been notorious for limiting power. But Cruz has as much raw power as any hitter in the league. 

Those two at-bats were emblematic of an evolution already underway. In June, Cruz had a .317 wOBA, but his .386 xWOBA suggested he was due for things to turn his way. And it looked like he was tinkering with a new approach, too. His GB% for the month plunged to 35.1%, a season-low; his FB%, meanwhile, soared from 15.8% to 33% — a seemingly conscious effort to hit the ball in the air more often. This is good, because, as we’d expect,  Cruz gets far more production out of those types of batted balls. 

Cruz’s Batted Ball Production	Ground balls	Fly balls	Line drives
wOBA	.246	.631	.779
SLG	.284	1.245	1.107

We can see here that Cruz is looking to play into his strengths — which, as we saw against the Phillies, can even overpower the strengths of the opposing pitcher. And it couldn’t be coming at a better time for the Pirates, suddenly surging into the tick of the NL Wild Card race. While their pitching has led the push, Cruz is certainly capable of becoming the sort of consistent, high-impact bat that drives an underwhelming offense.