{"id":218863,"date":"2026-06-14T09:11:30","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T09:11:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/218863\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T09:11:30","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T09:11:30","slug":"pirates-roster-moves-big-blow-oneil-cruz-placed-on-injured-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/218863\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirates Roster Moves: Big Blow; Oneil Cruz Placed on Injured List"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img width=\"1120\" height=\"630\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Cruz2-1-1120x630.jpg\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium tpd-force-16x9-aspect-ratio wp-post-image\" alt=\"Oneil Cruz, Pittsburgh Pirates\" decoding=\"sync\" fetchpriority=\"high\"   loading=\"eager\"\/>Photo provided by Matt Lynch\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>PITTSBURGH \u2014 The Pittsburgh Pirates will be without their starting center fielder as Oneil Cruz has been placed on the 10-day injured list with non-displaced fourth and fifth metacarpal fractures in his left hand, retroactive to June 8. <\/p>\n<p>Cruz was scratched from Tuesday\u2019s lineup against the Dodgers with recurring hand discomfort.  The 27-year-old owns a .264\/.350\/.427 batting line with 10 doubles, 14 home runs, 44 RBI and 21 stolen bases in 64 games. Cruz ranks fourth in baseball in steals and is tied for ninth in homers.<\/p>\n<p>Despite being tied for the MLB lead with 98 strikeouts, Cruz\u2019s performance this season has been one of the key reasons the Pirates have had a much-improved showing offensively. Entering Wednesday night\u2019s game, Pittsburgh is sixth in baseball with 336 runs.<\/p>\n<p>To take Cruz\u2019s place on the active roster, the Pirates recalled outfielder Billy Cook from Triple-A Indianapolis for what will be his third big-league stint this season. In 32 games combined between his first two stints on the year, Cook batted .190\/.190\/.190 (4 for 21) with three stolen bases and five runs. He made two starts in center, two in right and one at first base. <\/p>\n<p>In 15 games with Indianapolis this year, Cook has a .291\/.409\/.473 batting line with one double, three home runs, 11 RBI and four stolen bases. <\/p>\n<p>Jake Mangum will start in center field for the Pirates and will hit eighth on Wednesday night against the Dodgers. He\u2019s expected to get the bulk of the playing time there in Cruz\u2019s absence with Cook as the only other viable option currently on the active roster. <\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMentioned in this article: <a href=\"https:\/\/pittsburghbaseballnow.com\/tag\/billy-cook\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Billy Cook<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/pittsburghbaseballnow.com\/tag\/oneil-cruz\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Oneil Cruz<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/pittsburghbaseballnow.com\/tag\/pittsburgh-pirates\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pittsburgh Pirates<\/a> <\/p>\n<p class=\"categories single-categories\">More about:<a href=\"https:\/\/pittsburghbaseballnow.com\/pirates-transactions\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pirates Transactions<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo provided by Matt Lynch PITTSBURGH \u2014 The Pittsburgh Pirates will be without their starting center fielder as&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[71505,39531,73,75,74,10997],"class_list":["post-218863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-billy-cook","tag-oneil-cruz","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-pittsburgh-pirates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}