That Oneil Cruz’s unsuccessful slide into home plate Sunday led to a benches-clearing incident quickly turned into the least of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ concerns.
While his teammates rushed onto the field to confront members of the Chicago White Sox, Cruz was writhing on the field in agony, with what would soon be diagnosed as a fractured left ankle.
The incident, which could shelve the exciting young shortstop for a couple of months, unfolded in the sixth inning of what would become a 1-0 Pirates win at home. With Cruz on third and no outs, Pittsburgh’s Ke’Bryan Hayes hit a groundball in his direction that Chicago third baseman Yoán Moncada fielded and threw to home. White Sox catcher Seby Zavala had to leap slightly to make the grab, and as he landed, Cruz crashed into him.
Zavala made the tag for an out just before Cruz’s late, hard slide spun him around and took him to the ground. The 29-year-old catcher immediately turned and barked at Cruz, 24, who was already exhibiting clear signs of pain and distress. While Cruz received medical attention, Pittsburgh’s Carlos Santana, who was next up to bat, stuck up for his injured teammate by taking issue with Zavala. That unhappy interaction quickly took on a physical aspect that briefly brought members of both sides to the scene.
A video clip of the sequence appeared to catch Zavala using several profanities to chide Cruz for the slide.
“What I don’t like is that [Zavala] screamed at [Cruz] when he got hurt,” Santana said after the game. “I had to support my teammate.”
“You see a man down, he can’t move, he’s in pain, and all [Zavala] worries about is [complaining] about what happened? It got everyone mad,” said Pittsburgh starter Johan Oviedo, who got the win after allowing five hits and no runs over 6⅔ innings. ” … It was like, ‘Bro, just chill. There’s a man on the ground.’ Hopefully, he will learn one day.”
“I was just talking to Santana about it,” Zavala told reporters. “He didn’t like what I said, he said something I didn’t like. That’s what happened. I think in a couple of days everybody will forget about it.”
After Cruz got hurt and was eventually helped off the field, he was replaced in the lineup by Ji Hwan Bae, who took the field at second base while teammate Rodolfo Castro — a close friend of Cruz’s and fellow Dominican — moved over to play short.
It’s not immediately clear who Pittsburgh will tab to primarily man shortstop while Cruz is out, but his injury is a major blow to a team that is off to a 6-3 start after several years of being among the worst squads in the major leagues.
As a rookie in 2022, Cruz got off to a shaky start at the plate and committed 17 errors in 87 games, but his batting average picked up later in the season as the 6-foot-7 shortstop showed off eye-popping tools. In July, he set a record for MLB’s Statcast era, which dates back to 2015, with an infield assist that zoomed to first at 97.8 miles per hour. Then, in August, Cruz smacked a single measured at an exit velocity of 122.4 mph, making it the hardest-hit ball that Statcast had tracked.
Early this season, Cruz continued to show progress as a hitter, and he came into Sunday’s game with a .267 batting average and a .778 OPS. With a sixth-inning walk that led to him reaching third after he stole second and advanced on a teammate’s single, Cruz extended his on-base streak to 19 consecutive games, dating back to September.
“It hurts a lot, because he’s like my brother,” Castro said Sunday, through an interpreter, of Cruz’s injury. “It hurts the team, too. We all feel the pain.”
