Oneil Cruz feels destined to become one of the coolest players in baseball. Cruz is absurdly tall for a shortstop at 6’7. He has massive power at the plate, and a super strong arm in the infield. He hasn’t quite lived up to his prospect status yet in his first 50+ games in the big leagues, but anyone with eyes can see his immense upside.
Oneil Cruz hit the hardest hit ball of Statcast era, and it was only a single
Pirates phenom Oneil Cruz is the new exit velocity king, but he only got a single out of it.
Ricky O'Donnell has covered basketball at all levels for more than a decade at SB Nation. He’s currently the Associate Director of Programming.
With the Pirates playing the Atlanta Braves on Wednesday, Cruz put his raw power on display. In the third inning, Cruz absolutely mashed a ball off Atlanta starter Kyle Wright that was measured with an exit velocity of 122.4 MPH — making it the hardest hit ball of the Statcast era, which started in 2015.
There was only one problem: the ball slammed off the outfield wall so hard that Cruz didn’t have much time to run the bases. He only got a single out of it. Watch the hit here:
It’s too bad that Cruz didn’t have enough of a launch angle to hit this one out of the park, because it would have been a total moon shot.
You can find the list of the hardest hit balls of the Statcast era here. The entire thing is dominated by Giancarlo Stanton until now. Before Wednesday, Stanton had 14 of the 16 hardest hit balls of the Statcast era. Now there’s a new exit velocity king with Cruz.
Amazingly, those top two Stanton exit velocities were a single and a double play. Cruz shouldn’t feel too bad about only getting a single out of it.
The Pirates are again near the basement of the National League. Players like Cruz are the only hope they have left. Of course, Pirates fans are already worried about his eventual departure years from now.
Enjoy Oneil Cruz while you can, Pittsburgh. Baseball players are rarely this cool.
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