A scary collision at home plate involving Pittsburgh Pirates’ star Oneil Cruz and Chicago White Sox catcher Seby Zavala led to a bench-clearing brawl during Sunday’s afternoon game in Steel City.
As you can see in the clip below, Cruz tried coming home on a groundball towards third base. Zavala managed to tag Cruz before the latter could touch home plate, but that wasn’t the worst of it for Pittsburgh.
Cruz injured his leg on the home plate collision and had to be removed from the game. While he was down, a heated confrontation led to both teams clearing their benches:
Losing Cruz for a lengthy period of time would be devastating for the Pirates. They surpassed expectations early by winning five of their first eight games, including a three-game sweep of the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park earlier this month.
Coming into Sunday’s game, the 24-year-old was batting .267 with a home run, four RBI, six walks and an OPS of .788. In just 87 games last year, Cruz batted .233 with 17 home runs, 54 RBI, 10 stolen bases and 28 walks.
The Pirates will continue their homestand with a three-game set against the defending World Series champion Houston Astros, beginning on Monday. Here’s hoping Cruz avoided a serious injury, and that he’ll be able to return to action sooner rather than later.
