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PITTSBURGH — Oneil Cruz s working his way back to making his full return to the Pittsburgh Pirates, but it's taking a little bit longer than originally anticipated.
The Pirates transferred Cruz from the 10-day injured list to the 60-day injured list on July 18, which keeps their starting center fielder out until early August.
Pirates general manager Ben Cherington explained the decision on The Pirates Insider Show on 93.7 The Fan, noting Cruz is making progress, but not quite ready to come back yet and that this decision gives them room on the 40-man roster, plus allows Cruz to return when fully healthy.
“Obviously Oneil’s broken bones in his hand and when we’re dealing with a broken bone, it’s really just a matter of the bone healing and the player kind of telling us through the feedback he’s giving about symptoms when it’s time to push harder," Cherington said.
“All the testing suggests that the bones are healing, it’s progressing, there’s not a setback per say, but he still has symptoms. When he’s swinging and making contact, he’s still feeling it, which tells us there’s still some healing going on still and we’ve got to listen to that.
“What happened was, as we got probably right before or right after All-Star break, as we kind of caught up with him, we adjusted his return-to-play calendar, just enough, such that, the rehab assignment was pushed into that first part of August, as opposed to last part of July and once we did that, once we made that calendar change, it kind of put the 60-day eligible date, which is August 7th, sort of right in the crosshairs of when he’d be wrapping up, hopefully, a rehab assignment anyways.
“So given that new information, it felt it made sense, we could use Cruz’s roster spot to do what we did yesterday and given what we know about Cruz, it’s not going to affect his return-to-play timing.”
What This Means for Cruz Going Forward
The Pirates put Cruz on the 10-day injured list back on June 10, retroactive to June 8, so him going on the 60-day injured list, as Cherington mentioned, just means that he can't officially return until Aug. 7.
Cruz was slated to come back later in July, but with these recent developments, the Pirates decided to push it back, which allows him to not rush his rehab and come back a little later and ready to go.
The move Cherington alluded to was them selecting the contract of right-handed pitcher Khristian Curtis, placing him on the 40-man roster, which they could do after moving Cruz to the 60-day injured list, which doesn't count against a 40-man roster spot.
Curtis had a strong outing for the Pirates in the second game of their doubleheader vs. the Cleveland Guardians at Progressive Field on July 18, throwing five scoreless innings in a bulk relief role in his MLB debut.
The Pirates will have to DFA someone when Cruz returns and then of course, send someone down to the minor leagues, making room for him on the 40-man roster and 26-man roster, respectively.
It's not great for Pirates fans to hear that Cruz will take longer to return, but now there is a more concrete timeline than there was prior, which puts him on track to play in a number of important games still to go.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com/mlb/pirates/onsi as Pirates Explain New Oneil Cruz Injury Decision.
