The Pittsburgh Pirates lost 9-8 to the Arizona Diamondbacks on Friday night. The highlight of the game was a 5-for-5 performance from shortstop Oneil Cruz.
Cruz draws a lot of attention for his record-breaking exit velocities and his long distance home runs. In his five-hit game on Friday, the hardest hit was 100.1 MPH and the longest hit was 280 feet. What I liked about this game was that he put the bat on the ball effectively, leading to a lot of hits that were difficult plays for the Arizona fielders.
In the first inning, he put an easy slicing swing on a low pitch on the outer half of the plate, sending a 48 MPH roller down the third base line to beat the shift.