Baseball is a game of inches.
A ball four that lands an inch away from the strike zone.
A line drive that lands a few inches fair to tie a game.
Young players slowly turning into Major Leaguers on a daily basis.
This game is about the fine details. However, when Oneil Cruz gets ahold of a pitch, baseball is no longer a game of inches.
Oneil Cruz
Cruz and Ji-Hwan Bae led the Pirates offense in a 5-4 win over the Reds today. Each player reached base three times and scored two runs in their first Opening Day starts. Cruz got the Pirates on the board in the third inning with the solo home run above, hitting the no-doubt blast to tie the score at 1-1.
Bae was intense on the bases in the fourth inning. With one out, he doubled on a line drive to left, using his speed to make sure he would reach second base. He stayed aggressive, stealing third base and rattling starter Hunter Greene, who walked Austin Hedges.
That may have forced the Reds to go to their bullpen a little early. Reds right-hander Fernando Cruz came on and walked three batters and threw a wild pitch that gave the Pirates a 4-1 lead.
Mitch Keller was one pitch away from having a nice five inning, two run start. The Pirates’ starter entered the fifth inning with two runs on four hits, with three walks and six strikeouts — giving up a solo homer in the bottom of the fourth to cut down the lead.
The Pirates stuck with Keller after he put runners at first and third with one out, approaching the 100 pitch mark. Keller struck out Tyler Stephenson, then went into a quick 0-2 count against Jason Volster. His 100th pitch saw Volster turning on an inside fastball for a triple down the line — thanks to a rough bounce off the wall that got past Canaan Smith-Njigba.
Prior to that at-bat, Keller turned the momentum and battled back in the inning. In the end, he lost a battle that tied the game at 4-4. A few innings earlier, I noted the outstanding job that Smith-Njigba did turning on an inside 102 MPH fastball for a hit. Volster did the same on an inside 96 MPH fastball from Keller.
Dauri Moreta came on and walked two batters, before striking out Will Benson to end the inning against his former team. Moreta struck out two more in the sixth, before Rob Zastryzny came on to make his Pirates debut, striking out one in 1.1 perfect innings.
That took the game to the eighth inning, where Bae and Cruz came through again to put Zastryzny on as the pitcher of record.
Bae led off the inning with a walk, then stole second and moved to third on a sacrifice bunt from Hedges. That brought up Cruz, who worked to a full count before taking a high 93 MPH fastball to left field for a sacrifice fly that scored Bae to give the Pirates a 5-4 lead.
With a speedy option on third and a tie game with one out, a fly ball is all you needed there. Cruz didn’t try a power swing, but laid an easy swing across the top of the zone, and because he’s Oneil Cruz, the ball still traveled to the warning track. That left plenty of time for Bae to score the go-ahead run.
Colin Holderman pitched a scoreless eighth inning, getting the game to David Bednar in the ninth. The Pirates used a different defensive alignment, moving Bae to center, Jack Suwinski to right, removing Smith-Njigba, and bringing in Rodolfo Castro at second.
Bednar gave up a double to left, but struck out two to pick up his first save of the year — giving Zastryzny the win and the Pirates a 1-0 start to the 2023 season.
Pirates Scope
**Andrew McCutchen had a great return, going 1-for-2 with three walks. Carlos Santana, on the other hand, had a rough day, going 0-for-4 and stranding seven. Smith-Njigba had a nice hit on a 102 MPH inside fastball against Hunter Greene, but struck out three times and left five on base. Despite the struggles from the 4-5 hitters, the Pirates managed to get offense from the edges of their lineup.
**The middle relief, to me, is a question mark for this team. When you get to Bednar with a one run lead, there’s a level of trust. Right now, the Pirates are in a situation where guys like Holderman have the chance to establish trust in their abilities to be consistent, just as Bednar did a few years ago. It’s not going to be comfortable to watch, but today’s outcome of 4.1 shutout innings, two hits, two walks, and seven strikeouts was exactly what you want to see from the bullpen before Bednar.
**Am I the only one who stops everything when Oneil Cruz is at the plate? Bae almost has the same excitement on the base paths. Having him setting the table in the later innings was beneficial today. Cruz led off the first and the third inning, but was batting cleanup in that big fourth inning. In that inning, Fernando Cruz came on and bounced 50 foot fastballs to Cruz, walking him to load the bases on a rally started by Bae. Then, in the eighth, Bae led off the inning with a walk, and Cruz brought him in as the number three hitter that inning. That pairing, with Hedges as the “get him over for Cruz” guy, might be fun to watch this year. Cruz isn’t going to be in that traditional cleanup role at the start of the game. That doesn’t mean he won’t be in the traditional cleanup role with a speedy runner on base in the later innings when the Pirates need a run.
