Kovacevic: As the future starts to feel more real, man, this is already fun

"We're not far," Bryan Reynolds was telling me late Monday night. "We're not far at all."

He smiled, too. I swear.

He knows. They all do. And it's been that way for some time now.

The rest of us, we're only starting to see it, and maybe never more than with Oneil Cruz's obscenely overdue return to PNC Park in this 12-1 burial of the Cubs that brought a bases-clearing double that lasered its way to the Notch, an RBI single that was almost as authoritative, an effortless steal, an eyepopping throw across the diamond, an extraordinary 12-stride tag-and-sprint on a sacrifice fly, and an array of accompanying Mythbusters-level metrics:

If that's too much data for anyone, measure it this way:

Oh, for real. He was smiling rounding second on that double, trying for a triple. I swear.

Why?

Because he knows.

He knows he's a 6-foot-7 accident of nature who can do things, physically, that other baseball players can't. He knows that he's got the acumen and strength, mentally, to make all that count. And just as he knew all that rounding second up there, he knew it every time he'd round it following a home run for Class AAA Indianapolis, feigning glancing down at his watch as a fun way of suggesting it was time to go to Pittsburgh.

He knew it early on this Monday when he'd told us this before the game of what we all can expect from this second coming: “What I can promise you is you’re going to see it a lot more frequently. You're going to see a lot of balls hit hard and a lot of balls traveling very far.”

That was through team interpreter Mike Gonzalez, and there'd be no misinterpretation by evening's end. 

And he knew it then, too, answering afterward when asked if he'd been aware of all the advanced metrics he'd just annihilated: “Whatever’s gonna get broken is gonna get broken.”

Wow.

Alex Stumpf has Cruz covered in a separate piece. But me, I couldn't stop thinking of the collective, of the kind of impact a bat -- no, a specimen -- like this can have on a lineup. Or a franchise.

It's not just that the Pirates appear to have half of their long-term everyday eight here now, with the two originals, Reynolds and Ke'Bryan Hayes, now joined by Cruz and, unless all of Jack Suwinski's long balls are optical illusions, then him, too. And there might be more position players already in the fold, depending on how Diego Castillo, Tucupita Marcano, Cal Mitchell, Michael Chavis and several others separate themselves. Or how other top prospects such as Henry Davis, Nick Gonzales and Liover Peguero push the process upon their own arrivals.

It might feel sudden over these past 48 hours, with Suwinski's three-blast Fathers Day and now this, but it's been in the works for quite a while.

Hayes knew.

Remember the long talk about the Pirates' future he and I had back in Bradenton?

The one where I asked if he thought fans in Pittsburgh knew how much talent Ben Cherington had amassed in the system, and he bluntly replied, "I don't think they know. Within these next two, three years ... yeah, we're gonna be really good. All the talent we have throughout the organization, we just got a glimpse of it last year when Oneil and Roansy Contreras came up in that final week. Getting those guys in here, once they're comfortable, once we're all together ... it's gonna be fun, man. It is."

I reminded Hayes of our talk after this game, and he remembered it vividly.

"Yeah, yeah, like, Jack, we got him in a trade. We got Ro in a trade. And it just seemed at the time we were talking like we were moving in the right direction."

And now?

"I mean, you can see already just the impact all the young kids are having on the club, kind of like that fresh-energy type of deal. And, like, our main goal was to try to play faster than the older teams and things of that nature, so we're going to need that. That's what I was saying in the spring, just making sure I know all these guys and make sure they're comfortable whenever they come up here right away. That way, whenever they come up, it's not new to them, and they can just be themselves and play to the best of their ability."

Hayes wasn't alone with his scout's eye. In a separate talk with Reynolds that same week in Bradenton, when I asked for a name that might wind up on everyone's radar in 2022, he pointed across the room to Suwinski's stall.

"You seen Jack yet?" Reynolds had asked me.

I replied that I hadn't.

"Josh Hamilton, man. The kid's Josh freaking Hamilton."

I did share that with readers at the time, but I otherwise didn't pay it much heed. Suwinski was heading to Class AA Altoona, and that told me all I thought I needed.

Nope. Because they know better than we do. The same way Xavier Nady did when he told me Jose Bautista would become an elite slugger, back when he could barely start in Pittsburgh. The same way Jack Wilson did when he told me Freddy Sanchez would win a batting title. The same way Josh Bell did when he told me Clay Holmes, now a superlative reliever with the Yankees, had the most deadly stuff of anyone on the Pirates' staff.

Look, it's been a couple of days. In the cold reality of past performance in the only category that counts, it's been two whole wins after a 1-11 plunge. And all the filling out of a fantasy everyday eight can't compensate for Contreras and Mitch Keller being the only two starting pitchers who could reasonably be considered part of the future. Best bet for the next wave is a year or two away at the earliest.

In the same breath, I'm comfortable saying that this is real:

As real as the shaving cream Daniel Vogelbach was picking out of his hair, after what I'm told might've been the season's most spirited clubhouse celebration.

As real as the pride Derek Shelton expressed when I asked how it felt, from the manager's perspective, each time one of these prospects sticks: "The one thing I give Ben a ton of credit for is that we’ve stayed with our process. When you start to see these kids come up -- and we’ve made some challenging moves -- but to see 'em come up and start to piece it together, it makes you smile a little bit. Like, yeah, this is what our process is. And I’m just really happy for them. They’re a bunch of kids. We’ve got 11 of them that are 23 or younger. They’re going to do some really fun things, some exciting things – and I think our fans are going to be excited about it.” 

Almost as real as this stark assessment of those youngsters' character from Chavis: "The quality of the guys we've called up has been pretty significant. We're not having those, um ... we don't have those ---holes. There's not a better way to say it. You don't have a guy with an attitude problem. You don't have a guy trying to push the issue. Guys come up, ask questions, try to be good ... honestly. I can't say enough about all of them."

So, how far again?

JUSTIN K. ALLER / GETTY

Bligh Madris pounds a two-run single for his first big-league hit in the second inning Monday night at PNC Park.

• What a wonderful debut for Madris, as well. Alex has that broken down, too.

Don't rule him out because he's 26. A .305/.385/.519 slash line in Class AAA isn't a joke. And showed more on this one evening -- 3 for 4, double, two RBIs, superb sliding catch into the right-field corner -- than Chang has over a month. Not that this is where anyone's bar should be set.

Baseball takes forever and, as Dillon Peters eloquently told me a few weeks back in Milwaukee of his own blossoming at age 29, "Hey, people do get better, you know."

They do. Chavis is 26, too.

• Hard to believe and yet not: Madris was the 50th player the Pirates have utilized this season, breaking a tie with the Reds for most in the majors. We're three weeks away from the All-Star break.

• Madris with the quote of the day on Cruz: “He has tools that come around once every 100 years. He’s special, to say the least. He can do things with the bat, hit pitches out of the ballpark that some guys are lucky to get out of the infield. It’s unbelievable being able to see what he can do.”

• Think a kind thought about Neal Huntington on this day. I might've been the man's most ardent critic, but he's the one who traded Tony Watson to the Dodgers for Cruz and pitcher Angel German at the 2017 trade deadline.

• One of the many ugly things about Major League Baseball's Super-2 arbitration is that it puts team officials into constant position to lie ... and to do so to people who know they're lying.

When Cherington was asked before this game why Cruz was called up now, he replied with some deliberate nonsense about swing decisions and defensive work, along with, "Nothing magic about Monday against the Cubs. Just felt like this was the right time for him to come up and start playing in the big leagues.”

That stinks. But no GM anywhere acknowledges it, or MLB has to face grievances from the MLBPA.

• It also stinks that the Pirates, with the buck stopping at Bob Nutting, authorized keeping Cruz down all this time for the flagrantly obvious purpose of getting his later arbitration years at a lower cost. Not all of their moves about the money, the way popular mythology goes, but this one sure was.

• It'll get lost in the blowout, but JT Brubaker put up six zeroes for his season's first win, spreading five hits and three walks while fanning five.

Of his 105 pitches, one was a standard four-seam fastball, trailing Keller's recent route of going heavy with the sinker.

"It's just the fact that it's there if we need it," Brubaker explained regarding the fastball. "That’s the thought process behind it, utilizing that two-seam seem to both sides of the plate and the four-seam is there if we need it. Felt like we needed it for that one pitch. In the last start, we felt like we didn't really need to use it at all. There could be outings down the road where we do need to use it."

Translation: He's keeping the ball in the park. Since being rocked by the Diamondbacks for three home runs June 3, he's made three starts with one total home run and a 2.45 ERA.

• The dozen runs were the Pirates' most since Aug. 14, 2021, and a 14-4 rout of the Brewers at PNC Park.

• Reynolds' June surge, now an annual event, has him slashing .358/.405/.582 after going 2 for 3 with a walk here. His .987 OPS for the month ranks 22nd in the majors.

• The crowd of 11,312 included a healthy walk-up crowd. The latter figure's never announced, but I could see the typically empty ticket lines populated beforehand. Terrific energy inside the place. Easy to tell the most knowledgeable fans came out.

• Two corresponding moves were made to the active roster: Peguero was, as very much expected, returned to Altoona, and Zach Thompson was placed on the 15-day injured list because of discomfort in his forearm, which he said before this game has been an issue for a couple starts. He doesn’t anticipate being on the IL long, and he'll continue to throw throughout.

• Oh, and let's hear it for even more kids, since the Steelers brought Kenny Pickett and their whole rookie class over for this one:

STEELERS

The Steelers' rookie class in a PNC Park suite Monday night.

• Thanks for reading my baseball stuff. I'll be back here for the Thursday series finale.

THE ESSENTIALS

• Boxscore
• Live file
• Standings
• Statistics
• Schedule
• Scoreboard

THE HIGHLIGHTS

THE INJURIES

• 10-day injured list: OF Ben Gamel (hamstring), OF Jake Marisnick (thumb), 1B Yoshi Tsutsugo (lumbar muscle strain), Josh VanMeter (finger)

• 15-day injured list: RHP Zach Thompson (forearm), LHP Dillon Peters (back)

• 60-day injured list: SS Kevin Newman (groin), OF Canaan Njigba-Smith (wrist), OF Greg Allen (hamstring), RHP Blake Cederlind (UCL), RHP Nick Mears (elbow surgery), Roberto Pérez (hamstring, out for season)

• COVID injured list: INF/OF Tucupita Marcano, RHP Duane Underwood Jr.

THE LINEUPS

Shelton's card:

1. Ke'Bryan Hayes, 3B
2. Bryan Reynolds, CF
3. Jack Suwinski, LF
4. Daniel Vogelbach, DH
5. Michael Chavis, 1B
6. Oneil Cruz, SS
7. Bligh Madris, RF
8. Tyler Heineman, C
9. Hoy Park, 2B

And for Ross' Cubs:

1. Christopher Morel, CF
2. Willson Contreras, C
3. Rafael Ortega, DH
4. Ian Happ, LF
5. Patrick Wisdom, 3B
6. Jonathan Villar, 2B
7. Nico Hoerner, SS
8. Jason Heyward, RF
9. Alfonso Rivas, 1B

THE SCHEDULE

Same two teams Tuesday, 7:05 p.m., matching righties Roansy Contreras (1-1, 3.06) and Matt Swarmer (1-2, 5.23). Chris Halicke will have it covered.

THE CONTENT

Visit our team page for everything.