Two Key Pittsburgh Pirates Prospects Starting to Heat Up

Two of the Pittsburgh Pirates most important prospects, Oneil Cruz and Nick Gonzales, have started to hit much better in recent weeks.

Two of the Pittsburgh Pirates most important prospects, Oneil Cruz and Nick Gonzales, didn’t start 2022 off on the right foot. However, they’ve both been heating up in recent weeks. They’ve both put together a nice stretch of games recently that, hopefully, can help them set the trend for themselves for the rest of the season.

Over the course of the last week, Gonzales has batted .500 on the dot. He also has a home run and two doubles. Plus, he has walked three times and has just six strikeouts. Strikeouts have been a considerable problem for Gonzales this year and to see him cut down on the swings and misses is promising. It took Gonzales a while last year to get into a groove, so it could be a similar situation this year.

Gonzales added two more hits to his week on Thursday evening. He went 2-for-5 against the San Francisco Giant Double-A affiliate. One of those hits was a homer. While he did strikeout twice, he raised his season OPS to .778. This streak has raised Gonzales’ OPS by over 150 points, going from .616 pre-May 11th to approaching .800.

On the other hand, Cruz has strung together two good weeks of play. Since May 5th, the slugging shortstop is batting for a quality .238/.360/.450 line, .365 wOBA, and 121 wRC+. Cruz has only struck out 18% of the time while drawing a walk at a 14% rate.

Cruz has also had his fair share of extra-base hits with two homers, a triple, and a double. Cruz’s overall production during this stretch of games has been bogged down by a .258 batting average on balls in play. Had it been close to his career average, he’d probably bat around .290+. His overall .241 BAbip has been the main culprit to his struggles this year

Cruz added on two more hits on Thursday with a single and a double in the double-header against the Detroit Tigers’ Triple-A affiliate. Between the two games, Cruz went 2-for-4 while drawing four more walks. He got on base six times in just eight trips to the plate. That increases his season walk rate to an impressive 14.5% rate.

Of course, this is a small sample size of playing time. But both Cruz and Gonzales aren’t unfamiliar with slow starts to the season just to turn on the jets later in the year. Seeing both begin to turn what is hopefully a new corner for them is always nice to see. Cruz and Gonzales are considered two very important parts of the Pirates’ future, and they could both be getting regular reps in the same major league line-up by early summer of next season.