ST. LOUIS -- Ever since he broke onto the Major League scene in 2021, Oneil Cruz has had a tendency to “break” Statcast with his offensive prowess. It’s been a little over a decade since exit velocities started being tracked, and of the 25 balls recorded as being hit 120 mph or harder, he has five of them. It’s a power potential that quickly made him a household name.
On Monday, Cruz showed he can also wow with his arm.
With the Pirates trailing by three runs in the sixth inning at Busch Stadium, Cardinals right fielder Lars Nootbaar lifted a fly ball to Cruz that would normally be deep enough for an RBI, but Cruz uncorked a throw home that was measured at exactly 100 mph to catch Victor Scott II at the plate.
The call stood upon further review, and Cruz now has the hardest-thrown assist for an out at home this season. The only harder-thrown assist for an outfielder this year was by Padres' Oscar Gonzalez, who threw it 100.1 mph but needed a relay from an infielder for an assist.
In the Statcast Era, the only Pirate outfielders to register a harder thrown assist are Starling Marte (100.6 mph on May 20, 2016 and 100.3 mph on June 11, 2016) and Billy Cook (100.2 mph on Sept. 11, 2024).
"It was a good throw,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “We know he's got a good arm, and he had a nice throw."
The Pirates would end up falling to the Cardinals, 6-3, but Cruz’s throw home kept the Pirates in the game late, close enough that Busch Stadium needed to hold its collective breath when Bryan Reynolds pulled a potential game-tying home run with two outs in the ninth just foul.
Had Reynolds kept that Ryan Helsley slider fair, Cruz might have had the play of the game. Instead, it’s just the best throw of the season from the position player with the best arm in baseball, according to Baseball Savant.
Outliers and wow moments draw eyeballs to Cruz, but he’s also doing things in other aspects of his game that a Pirates player hasn’t done in decades.
TAKING HIS BASE
Cruz reached base twice Monday via singles -- one on a tapper in front of the plate that he beat out by sprinting 30.3 feet per second, in case you needed to be reminded of another one of his tools -- but he’s becoming much less reliant on needing to just hit the ball to get on base. Cruz’s 16.8% walk rate is the seventh-best in baseball, and practically double his 8.5% walk rate from a year ago.
“I think we're seeing him mature as a hitter both [versus] right and left,” Shelton said recently. “You're seeing him having just more consistent at-bats and not going out of the zone. … As long as he's swinging at the balls in the strike zone, I think we're in good shape. And whether it's pitching around or he's not chasing, one of the two, it's leading to really quality at-bats.”
Cruz has also picked up those walks by the bushel. He drew four free passes on May 3, the second time he’s done that this season, the other time being March 29 against the Marlins. In the Modern Era, only three other Pirates have had multiple four-walk games in a season: Barry Bonds in 1992, Elbie Fletcher in 1940 and Arky Vaughn in 1938.
STEALING BASES
With 36 games in the books, the season is a little more than one-fifth complete, and Cruz sits at eight home runs and 14 stolen bases. Back of the envelope math, he’s not far off the pace of a 40-70 season, something only Ronald Acuña Jr. has done. Bonds is the only Pirate to ever go 30-30.
In the third inning, Cruz was thrown out trying to steal second base, something that had not happened since April 22, 2024. Not 2025, 2024. It was a streak of 34 straight steals, the longest for a Pirate since caught stealings were officially tracked starting in 1951 (the Pirates recognize a streak of 37 straight steals by Max Carey from 1922-1923).
It’s part of Cruz starting to look like a more complete player. You can’t break Statcast with walks and stolen bases, but he can still show just how much of a unicorn he can be in multiple facets of his game.