Pirates' Oneil Cruz To Get MRI On Left Knee
TLDR: Oneil Cruz left Saturday's game against the Tigers after a sliding catch in the 1st inning, and Don Kelly says the Pirates center fielder will get a precautionary MRI on his left knee.
The play that did it happened in the 1st inning. Cruz went into a slide trying to make a catch in shallow center, his foot caught in the PNC Park grass, and he went down awkwardly. Big chunks of outfield turf came up with him. Trainers checked on him out there, and he stayed in the game long enough to take an at-bat.
Jake Mangum enters to play center field in the bottom of the third. The field monster got Oneil Cruz in the first, with big divots of outfield grass kicking up when he attempted to make a sliding catch. He was checked out in the outfield but stayed in and took an at-bat later.
That at-bat was a strikeout against Justin Verlander, and it was the only one he got. Jake Mangum took over in center in the bottom of the 3rd. When a guy stays in after a scare and then gets pulled 2 innings later, the thing he's been playing through usually got worse, and after the game Don Kelly said pretty much that.
Kelly said removing Cruz was precautionary but that his left knee did tighten up. Cruz will get an MRI as a precaution
Alex Stumpf@AlexJStumpfJake Mangum enters to play center field in the bottom of the third. The field monster got Oneil Cruz in the first, with big divots of outfield grass kicking up when he attempted to make a sliding catch. He was checked out in the outfield but stayed in and took an at-bat later.
Precautionary is the word the Pirates keep using, and for now it's the right one. Nobody has reported structural damage. The MRI is there to rule it out. But the knee tightened up badly enough that they got him off the field, and when the player is Oneil Cruz you want pictures before anyone says he's fine.
He's had a very good year, too. Cruz is hitting.281/.368/.488 with 20 homers, 67 RBIs and 30 steals in 96 games. He's also just the 3rd player in Pirates history with back-to-back 20-homer, 30-steal seasons, and the other 2 are Barry Bonds and Andy Van Slyke. That's a bounce-back season from a 27-year-old the franchise has been waiting on to become this guy for years.
Luckily for Pittsburgh, the timing couldn't be much softer. After Saturday there's 1 game left on the schedule and nothing riding on it, so Cruz is expected to sit the finale whatever the MRI says. The results only really matter for the winter: they'll tell us whether he gets a normal offseason or spends it rehabbing.
So watch for the MRI results. A clean scan turns this into a guy leaving a meaningless game in the last week because the outfield grass grabbed his foot. Anything else puts a question mark next to the best season of Cruz's career heading into 2027.