After a rough start to his Pittsburgh Pirates’ tenure, Bryan De La Cruz has turned a corner.
The outfielder, acquired from the Miami Marlins before the trade deadline last month, is batting .351 (13-for-37) over his past 10 games after hitting .118 (4-for-34) through his first eight.
De La Cruz and the Pirates will look for that success to continue on Saturday evening when they host the Cincinnati Reds in the third contest of their four-game series.
“I tried to do too much because when you get traded and you hit 18 home runs, that’s a little bit of pressure because they traded for a guy that they know that can hit home runs,” De La Cruz, who has 18 homers and 60 RBIs this season, said via an interpreter.
De La Cruz went 1-for-3 with two RBIs on Friday as Pittsburgh erased a five-run deficit in a 6-5 win. He sparked the rally with a double in the fifth inning that drove in Joey Bart to get the Pirates on the board. De La Cruz brought Bart in again for the winning run with a sacrifice fly in the sixth.
De La Cruz went 3-for-4 with a pair of doubles and three RBIs in Thursday’s 7-0 Pittsburgh victory in the series opener. He is batting .244 for the season.
“He went through a tough stretch, but … even going back to the second game in Texas where he had the two-out base hit, that’s six, seven RBIs (in four games),” manager Derek Shelton said.
The Pirates have won three of their past four games and can move out of last place in the National League Central with a win Saturday. Although their playoff odds are slim with an eight-game gap and six teams to pass for the final wild card, they don’t plan on giving up.
“Packing it in is not in our dictionary,” pitcher Bailey Falter said. “We’re always battling no matter what … so we’re just trying to finish the year strong, and I feel like we’re doing pretty well right now.”
Jake Woodford (0-5, 6.67 ERA) will take the mound for Pittsburgh looking to rebound after allowing seven runs (five earned) over four innings in a 10-3 loss to the Seattle Mariners on Sunday in his last outing. The right-hander is 0-2 with a 5.70 ERA in 12 career appearances (two starts) against Cincinnati.
The Reds, meanwhile, will try to get back on track and keep their equally slim postseason hopes alive.
They enter Saturday’s game at 62-67 with 33 games remaining. They’d have to go on a 22-11 run the rest of the way to match the 84 wins held by last year’s final two wild-card entrants.
“A lot of stuff going against us right now,” second baseman Jonathan India said. “We’re not catching fire, and guys have been injured. The game’s not rewarding us right now.”
The most recent injuries have been to their starting rotation, with Andrew Abbott the latest to be sidelined. The left-hander was added to the injured list Friday with a left shoulder strain. The Reds already are without ace Hunter Greene and Graham Ashcraft.
After a bullpen game on Friday, a decision on Saturday’s Reds starter hadn’t been decided.
“Injuries are part of this game, and they (stink). It hurts to lose some key pieces to this team,” catcher Tyler Stephenson said. “We’ve just got to keep playing, and we know that these guys will be back soon.”
