Welcome to The Opener, where every weekday morning during the regular season you’ll get a fresh, topical story to start your day from one of SI.com’s MLB writers.
It took star prospect Oneil Cruz just over 10 weeks to make his season debut with the Pirates, on Monday night at PNC Park in Pittsburgh. It took just over 10 batters for him to make his first play in the field. By that point, it was already clear to everyone watching that his mere presence was such spectacle in the first place.
There has never been a player quite like the 6’7” Cruz, who last year became the first person that tall to start an MLB game at shortstop.