Oneil Cruz puts his power on display with 3 incredible swings

Every fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates has been waiting for Oneil Cruz to start looking like the player he did before his injury last season. He was off to a bit of a slow start, hitting just .222 with .580 OPS in the month of April. This led to plenty of questions about the Pirates offense in general, but also about whether or not Cruz was going to be able to regain his form after missing basically a whole year.

But things have changed for Cruz so far in May. He is starting to look like the hitter that was always projected. So far he is batting .297 with .938 OPS, obviously a big improvement. His approach has changed at the plate as he seems to be going up to bat with a more aggressive attitude. Also, could he just finally be feeling up to game speed?

It probably is a little bit of both. No one can deny that it is hard to get back into the flow of things if you have been out of it for a while. He also looks so much more confident at the plate and it is leading to better numbers, including his metrics.

On Tuesday, May 21, Oneil Cruz made some history. Cruz came up big for the Pirates by clubbing three hits in the series-opening game with the Giants. I say three hits because Cruz became the first player to have three hits in a game that were at least 115 miles per hour or faster. He also is now the second player to have three hits of at least 120 miles per hour in their career:

This was something that Pirates fans got used to hearing when Cruz first came up.

He was hitting the ball harder, running faster, and throwing harder than pretty much any other player running the Major Leagues. Sure some players have those tools, but he was breaking stat cast records. Some worried that was slipping away from Cruz after the injury, now it looks like he is heating up more than ever.