Pittsburgh Pirates GM Gives Oneil Cruz Injury Update

Oneil Cruz was at PNC Park over the weekend, even though he's still technically in the middle of a rehab assignment and isn't on the Pittsburgh Pirates' MLB roster.

Cruz has been out since the middle of July after sustaining a left hand injury, but a return could be coming sooner rather than later. 

Cruz was having a stellar season before landing on the injured list. In 64 games in 2026, the left-handed hitter owns a .822 OPS with 14 home runs, on top of an average exit velocity of 96 mph.

The reality is, Cruz may not be that same player once he does come back, and that's something Pirates general manager Ben Cherington recently discussed

The Pittsburgh executive talked on the Pirates Insider Show on 93.7 The Fan on Sunday, and one of the topics he discussed was Cruz's rehab

He emphasized that, assuming Cruz returns this season, players with similar injuries have taken time to return to their previous level of play.

"It might not feel 100% even until the offseason," the executive said.

It sounds like It will be a lot of pain management for Cruz from this point on. 

With that, Cherington mentioned that, at this point, it really is listening to what the player has to say and going from there.

“It’s really a matter of listening to Oneil about where he is. You can imagine, for Oneil specifically, the amount of trauma that he creates with how fast he swings the bat and what happens at contact."

Despite some apparent concerns about Cruz's level, Cherington remains confident that Cruz will return to the big-league team, hopefully in the near future. 

“It’s a matter of, ‘Can he get his swing off while he’s feeling that?’ We’re working through that with him. Still confident we’re going to see him in Major League games here soon. We’ll have a little better idea by the end of the day.”

The Pirates may still be out of a playoff hunt in the National League, but getting Cruz for the final month of the regular season may be the exact spark the team needs to go on a run in September, clinch a Wild Card spot, and, hopefully, end the organization's over-decade-long postseason drought. 

Pittsburgh opens up a three-game series with the Detroit Tigers on Monday evening at PNC Park. It'll be interesting to see whether Cruz returns over the next few days.