6 months ago
3
Field Level Media
Jul 8, 2025, 04:16 PM ET
Pittsburgh Pirates halfway fielder Oneil Cruz accepted an invitation connected Tuesday to vie successful Monday's Home Run Derby successful Atlanta.
Cruz is the 5th subordinate to perpetrate to the competition, held 1 time earlier the All-Star Game. The others are Ronald Acuna Jr. of the Atlanta Braves, Cal Raleigh of the Seattle Mariners, James Wood of the Washington Nationals and Byron Buxton of the Minnesota Twins.
Cruz, 26, is known for having a almighty bat and regularly delivers immoderate of the hardest-hit homers successful the sport. His location tally May 25 astatine location against the Milwaukee Brewers had an exit velocity of 122.9 mph and was the hardest deed homer successful the 10-year Statcast era.
But Cruz has ne'er deed much than 21 successful a play and that was successful 2024. He's connected way to acceptable a caller precocious this twelvemonth and has 15 successful 80 games.
Cruz has 55 vocation homers successful 324 games with the Pirates.
Cruz volition beryllium the archetypal Pittsburgh subordinate to enactment successful the Derby since Josh Bell successful 2019. Other Pirates to beryllium portion of the lawsuit were Bobby Bonilla (1990), Barry Bonds (1992), Jason Bay (2005), Andrew McCutchen (2012) and Pedro Alvarez (2013).
Overall, Cruz is batting conscionable .203 this play but leads the National League with 28 steals.
Among the players to crook down an invitation to the eight-player tract are two- clip champion Pete Alonso of the New York Mets, Kyle Schwarber of the Philadelphia Phillies and 2024 runner-up Bobby Witt Jr. of the Kansas City Royals.
Defending champion Teoscar Hernandez of the Los Angeles Dodgers precocious turned down a spot arsenic a information to nagging injuries.
Top powerfulness threats Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees and Shohei Ohtani of the Dodgers besides are expected to skip the event.
