PITTSBURGH — The early returns for Oneil Cruz’s transfer to middle area have usually been optimistic, seeing him study to benefit from his velocity and arm to create alternatives he might not have had at shortstop. His defensive work had even graded out effectively regardless of studying on the job, with Baseball Savant grading him as +1 Outs Above Common coming into play Saturday.
Saturday was the primary time in his 13 video games in middle that Cruz appeared to wrestle at his new place. He got here up empty on a dive on a straight-ahead line drive by Adam Frazier within the fifth, turning a single right into a triple. Within the seventh, he had bother monitoring down a Bobby Witt Jr. fly ball, which become a double.
Each of these hits resulted in runs, and the Pirates would find yourself dropping to the Royals at PNC Park, 5-1.
“I believe once we moved him on the market, we mentioned there’s going to be bumps within the highway and I believe we noticed slightly little bit of it at this time,” mentioned supervisor Derek Shelton. “Sadly, a few performs that ended up leading to runs. However yeah, it may be a state of affairs the place there’s performs that he is obtained to discover ways to make.”
“I’m good in middle area now,” Cruz mentioned earlier than the sport, through interpreter and coach Stephen Morales. “I’m not coming again to shortstop. I really feel like on the market I really feel snug now.”
Cruz has had the suitable perspective, and the suitable tools even, utilizing a Michael A. Taylor glove in his first few weeks there. (And he intends to maintain utilizing it, as a result of in any case, “if there’s no downside with it, I’ll use it.”) In his first handful of video games, he’s performed effectively going facet to facet, making a number of working catches that had roughly 50% catch chances, in accordance with Statcast, whereas standing up. It’s a style of what he might doubtlessly do at his new place.
On Saturday, he confirmed he nonetheless must work on coming in on the ball.
The Frazier triple was one other a kind of 50-50 balls that he took a danger on and missed. Main off an inning, it wasn’t essentially a nasty danger to take. The Witt ball, although, is a instructing second. He took a number of steps backwards and appeared to have bother studying the spin at first, finally transferring in late and never with the ability to snag it in time.
“It seemed like he broke again, after which did not have the flexibility to get better,” Shelton mentioned. “These are the balls that he will should study, along with his skill to return, that he can in all probability freeze slightly bit and see the place it is at earlier than he takes the preliminary couple drop steps that he took.”
These batted balls made Mitch Keller’s line of six innings pitched, 4 runs allowed (three earned) look slightly worse than it in all probability ought to have been, however it comes with the territory of studying a brand new place. The teaching employees has preferred how he has attacked middle area, however teachable moments like Saturday are inevitable.
“He is been engaged on it,” Shelton mentioned. “Once more, there’s going to be performs he has to discover ways to make, and that is the place we’re at proper now. And that is what occurs once you take a center infielder and put him within the outfield in middle area.”
