ARLINGTON -- Nobody in baseball can make a ball jump off his bat quite like the Pirates’ Oneil Cruz, who had the fastest exit velocity of any batted ball each of the past two seasons, but his three-run homer Wednesday night was just as impressive for where it landed as for how fast it got there.
In an 8-4 win over the Rangers, Cruz mashed a soft cutter, bouncing it off the top of the right-field foul pole. Had the pole not been in the way, it would have traveled an estimated 432 feet from the plate, per Statcast. The ball ricocheted into the third of Globe Life Field’s four decks in that area. The 116.9 mph exit velocity was the hardest-hit homer in MLB this season, and the second-hardest-hit ball in the six-plus seasons in the ballpark’s history.
Shortly after the game, Cruz said through interpreter Stephen Morales that he hadn’t yet seen the video highlights of his monster shot, but he didn’t really have to.
“I saw it in person, I don’t need to see it,” Cruz joked.
Considering Cruz’s previous at-bats, in which he was 0-for-4 with three strikeouts, he said he believed his luck had to change. Cruz told teammate Marcell Ozuna -- who, coincidentally, also once hit a ball off the top of the foul pole in Miami back in 2015 -- that he thought he might hit one out just before he came to bat.
“I would not tell you the exact words that I told him, but in that situation right there, I told him that I was having a rough day, but that was the at-bat that I needed to do something,” Cruz said. “And I said to him that I was gonna hit a home run there.”
Cruz’s dinger put the game away after the previous batter, pinch-hitter Jake Mangum, drove home a run on a swinging bunt fielder’s choice that allowed Nick Gonzales to score from third ahead of third baseman Josh Jung’s throw to the plate.
“I’m glad he didn’t hit it head-high, I promise you that,” Mangum said. “Big swing. That really put the game away. With [closer Dennis] Santana coming in at the end it was like, all right, let’s get out of here.”