Pirates' Oneil Cruz on pace to end decade-long drought

Pirates' Oneil Cruz on pace to end decade-long drought originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

Oneil Cruz is in the process of ending a decade-long Pittsburgh Pirates drought.

He's doing it by showing off one of his many tools -- his speed.

Cruz leads MLB in the early going with nine steals, and he's not showing any signs of slowing down.

The Pirates haven't had someone steal 40 bases in a season since Starling Marte did so in 2016. At this rate, Cruz would fly right on by that.

"Cruz appears to have the green light whenever he’s on base for the Bucs," MLB.com wrote as part of a new article on Friday. "It makes sense for a player who stole 38 bases last year -- tied for fourth most in the Majors -- and has an 88.2% success rate in his career. Cruz is 9-for-10 in steals this season. He’s done it without top-end speed as his 27.7 feet-per-second sprint speed entering Thursday ranked in the 70th percentile and well below his 2025 standard (29.2 ft/sec). Regardless, expect Cruz to keep running at will."

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Ever since he got to the major leagues, Cruz has been one of baseball's most tantalizing talents. There isn't a thing he can't do on the field.

He can be frustratingly inconsistent and erratic, though. The hope for the Pirates has always been that with more experience will come more consistency.

Because if Cruz can tap into his immense skillset consistently, it's a huge problem for every team that plays against Pittsburgh.

Right now, it seems Cruz is slowly starting to figure things out. That's certainly great news for the Pirates.

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