Bucs blast off! Cruz's 113.1 mph missile helps set franchise homer mark

PITTSBURGH -- Oneil Cruz's barrel perfectly met a hanging sweeper from Brewers starter Logan Henderson, belting the ball into the right-field seats for the Pirates' 172nd home run of the season.

While cutting Pittsburgh’s deficit to one in the fourth inning of an eventual 5-4 loss to Milwaukee on Wednesday at PNC Park, Cruz’s solo shot set a new franchise record for single-season home runs, surpassing the previous mark of 171 in 1999. The Pirates added to their homer total with a two-run shot by Brandon Lowe in the fifth and a solo blast by Rafael Flores Jr. in the sixth for 174.

The Bucs have increased their homer total by 57 from their 117 in 2025, their fourth-largest season-to-season improvement, with 10 games still to go. Still, just as it has most of the year, the power surge wasn’t enough to get into the win column as Jared Jones’ three runs allowed in five innings, mixed with two runs in two innings from Carmen Mlodzinski, put Pittsburgh on the losing end.

“It's kind of crazy to think about,” Lowe said of setting the homer record. “A franchise that has been around for as long as this one has, to etch yourself as an offense into the history books like that, it's pretty impressive.”

There’s been plenty of long balls leading up to Cruz’s record-breaker that have told the positive side of Pittsburgh’s season story.

Rookie Konnor Griffin belted the first home run of his career on his 20th birthday back on April 24. There was Tyler Callihan’s miraculous date with the Dodgers on Shohei Ohtani on June 11, when he blasted the first two home runs of his career, including one off the reigning National League MVP. A third rookie, Esmerlyn Valdez, blasted a homer in four consecutive games as part of a torrid July.

Then, there were the late-game heroics. Bryan Reynolds walked off the Twins on May 30. Lowe partnered with Flores on Aug. 19 to win a series against the Tigers with bottom-of-the-ninth homers.

“What has been really impressive with most of our guys is that they're going up there to have good at-bats, and it ends up being a home run,” manager Don Kelly said.

That’s exactly what Pittsburgh did against Milwaukee, especially on Flores’ opposite-field shot at 107 mph off the bat.

“We're a really good offensive team, and we've shown it the whole year,” Flores said. “It's just sometimes, you win games, sometimes, you lose games.”

“They're good at hitting the long ball, and you just have to be sure that you're executing pitches,” Henderson said on the opposing side. “Not that you don't feel that way going into an outing against any other team, but you definitely want to limit damage against those guys.”

Not counting the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, the Pirates' increase in homers from 2025-26 is their biggest year-over-year jump since 63 from 2011-12. This was just what the doctor ordered when general manager Ben Cherington set out to improve Pittsburgh’s offense in the offseason.

The Bucs ranked last in MLB last season with 117 home runs, 31 fewer than the 29th-ranked team (Cardinals, 148). Their OPS (.655) and RBI (561) totals also ranked last.

“I'm not really shocked by the outcome of it,” Lowe said. “You look around at the talent that's in this clubhouse, you take the lineup that was here last year, and then you add in guys like [Ryan] O'Hearn ... you get a lot of pieces that you can fit back in, and you get a lineup that looks like this one does. It takes a lot of pressure off of guys like Oneil and Reynolds, who've been here for a while, and have probably been the center stone and the focus of a lot of stuff.

“And now pitchers have to spread that focus out over a full nine [innings], it takes a lot of pressure off of a lot of hitters and lets guys free up to get some mistake pitches and do damage to them.”

Pittsburgh traded for Lowe for the final year of his contract. All the two-time All-Star has done is put up one of the best power seasons of his career and set the club’s single-season home run record for a second baseman, surpassing Neil Walker’s 23 in 2014.

Cherington also signed O’Hearn to a two-year contract. Despite missing 50 games with multiple quad injuries, O’Hearn has hit a career-high 18 home runs. Cruz has also missed north of 60 games and still ranks second on the squad in long balls.

Even with the results offensively, Pittsburgh remains on the outside of the postseason picture for another season.

“At the end of the day, it kind of sucks we lost our key guys for the long term; I guess you could say over the course of the season,” Jones said. “It's ‘what could have been.’"