CINCINNATI – Bubba Chandler was kicking himself for being on his iPad in the Pirates tunnel for the first of two Oneil Cruz missiles Tuesday that were launched to the seats at Great American Ball Park.
Knowing Cruz’s reputation for otherworldly power, he wondered how well the ball was hit.
“I was looking at something. I didn't see Cruz's first, and I hated it, because I was like, ‘Dang, like, who hit the homer? Cruz. Cool. Did he hit it good? Yeah he hit it pretty good.’ I went to go watch it on the iPad. Sick to see,” Chandler confessed at his locker after the game. “But, yeah, it's awesome.”
That’s one word for Cruz’s homer, projected at 444 feet in the fourth inning off Cincinnati starter Brandon Williamson. It gave the Pirates a 6-1 lead, and they would hold on for the 8-3 win on a wild, windy night in Cincinnati.
Cruz added a two-run insurance shot in the ninth after the Reds had crept back into the game.
“When Oneil is going, it's special,” Chandler added. “You're gonna see really something big out of him. But again, like, we find ways to get guys on base, find ways to get guys [on], that's what's special about this group. One through 13, or however many position players we’ve got, need to get plugged in and do their job at the highest level. I think it's fun.”
Jake Mangum echoed Chandler’s sentiments about Cruz, adding that the Pirates are a different team when Cruz hits the way he did Tuesday, going 3-for-4 with two homers, three runs scored and three RBIs, raising his average from .143 to .278 in one night.
“Oh, it feels really good. [He didn't] just say it now, he's been saying it to me the whole workout and the whole practice before the game,” Cruz said of Mangum’s pep talks. “It feels really good to have somebody that believes in you and has your back. And he told me the same words he just said, that 'where you go, we go.' It feels really good just to have a teammate like that.”
Chandler was pretty electric himself Tuesday, striking out six over 4 1/3 hitless innings. But he also walked six and didn’t have great command of his overpowering fastball, which reached triple digits on several occasions.
"I just wasn't executing,” Chandler said. “The confidence was probably not where it needed to be. We had a great lead. My job is to go out there and three up, three down, quick innings, let our boys get back in and hit. I think as the game went on, it was more about trying to go do something, rather than just going out there and doing it.”
With the Pirates struggling with runners in scoring position in the first two innings, O’Hearn launched a 94 mph four-seamer from Williamson (0-1) to the bleachers in right center with two outs for a 4-0 lead.
Reynolds followed with a line drive off the messageboard facade in left for his first of the season and 139th as a Pirate, moving him out of a tie with Bill Mazeroski for 10th and into a tie with Jason Bay for ninth in club history.
While Cruz appreciated Mangum having his back in the clubhouse, Pirates manager Don Kelly wanted to let his team know he’s got theirs in the dugout.
Several players were upset in the eighth inning by first base umpire Rob Drake, who called a check-swing on Eugenio Suárez, who had already begun walking back to the Cincinnati dugout thinking it was strike three. Home plate umpire and crew chief Jordan Baker told the players in the Pirates dugout to settle down and Kelly told Baker “watch the game” twice before getting tossed.
“I didn't appreciate that. Jordan was in our dugout and when our guys are pulling for our guys, and that's something we're going to do all year long, is have each other's backs,” Kelly said. “And I'm going to have our guys’ backs, and I expect them to have their teammates’ backs. And I think that when you get a call like that, in a big situation, where we talked about last year, we're fighting for respect every single day, and that's going to be us all year long, that we continue to do that.”