Jake Mangum didn’t get to Pittsburgh the easy way, and he didn’t get this chance the easy way either.
At 30, the Pirates outfielder finally found himself in an everyday role after years of waiting. A Mets fourth-round pick in 2019, Mangum spent five Minor League seasons before making his Major League debut with the Rays in 2025. Then an offseason trade sent him from Tampa Bay to Pittsburgh, and when Oneil Cruz landed on the injured list June 10 with fourth and fifth metacarpal non-displaced fractures on his left hand, Mangum stepped into the center-field job.
He made the most of it by staying exactly who he is.
“Just needed to help the team win baseball games,” Mangum told MLB.com. “Really simple as that.
Next man up mentality. It's what we've done all year.”
Cruz returned Monday after missing 58 games, and Pittsburgh had gone 26-32 in that stretch. Even with Cruz back on the active roster, Mangum was still in center field for the Pirates’ 8-5 loss to the Tigers in the opener of a three-game series.
The numbers told part of the story. Mangum entered Monday hitting .300, doing most of his damage near the top of the lineup and earning the Pirates’ nomination for the Heart & Hustle Award. Don Kelly said Mangum should still get plenty of time in center and left as Cruz eases back in.
What stood out most was how Mangum handled the role. He’s a contact-first player who battles through every at-bat, using his 5-foot-11 frame to put the ball in play and create pressure any way he can. Cruz, by contrast, is built on rare power and speed at 6-foot-7, the kind of talent that can tilt a game in a single swing or run.
Kelly made clear Mangum couldn’t - and shouldn’t - try to copy that.
“Jake Magnum can't go in and try to hit a ball into the river,” Kelly said on June 24. “Maybe if you got a hold of it on the right day with the wind, yes, he's got power. But he can't go out there trying to do that."
Mangum has leaned into his own game, and teammate Brandon Lowe saw that long before the rest of the league did. Lowe came to Pittsburgh with Mangum and reliever Mason Montgomery in the December trade from Tampa Bay, and he remembered seeing Mangum in Spring Training before he reached the big leagues.
“He's not trying to appease anybody in a metric fashion or anything like that. He's going out there and he knows what his game is,” Lowe said.
“It's 110% at all times. If he's got 80% that day, he's going to give you 90.
I feel like there's no throttle. There's no governor on Jake.
He's going to give you everything that his body can give you all the time.”
For Mangum, the biggest difference has been the rhythm. He said playing every day has let him settle in, while life as a fourth outfielder made it harder to stay sharp and fresh at the same time.
“It's nice to be in rhythm. You're in rhythm with a game,” Mangum said.
“When you're in that fourth outfield role, it's challenging to stay locked in every day. You feel like you need to work pregame to stay ready for the game, but then you're sore when you go into the game later that night.
Playing every day allows you to get into a rhythm for sure. It's a challenging thing to come in off the bench in this league and get one at-bat.”
The workload hasn’t worn him down. Mangum said his body has felt better in mid-August than at any other point in his professional career, and he credited the Pirates’ weight room and training staff. He’s also trimmed some of his pregame work to keep his legs fresh.
On Monday, with Pittsburgh down 8-1 after six innings, Mangum still found ways to stir things up. He walked twice and scored both times, and in the eighth inning he charged down the first-base line trying to beat out an infield grounder, coming up less than an inch short.
He has done the job his own way. Now the Pirates get Cruz back, and Mangum hopes that gives the club a different kind of boost.
“It's not a great way for an opportunity to present itself, but once that day came, it is what it is. I tried to play to the best of my ability, and we need him back,” Mangum said. “He's a special player who has a great chance to impact baseball games with one swing, and him coming back hopefully helps us win more baseball games.”
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Oneil Cruzs Return Just Hit A Frustrating New Pirates Roadblock
Oneil Cruzs road back has taken another turn, even as the Pirates keep insisting the finish line is close. General manager Ben Cherington said Cruzs fractured left hand has fully healed, which at least clears the biggest structural concern after the shortstop was sidelined June 7 and later began a rehab assignment in early August. The encouraging part is obvious: the injury itself is no longer the obstacle it once was.
Whats still slowing things down is the swing, and that makes the return calendar harder to pin down. Cruz continues to feel discomfort when making contact, leaving Pittsburgh to monitor how he responds before putting him back in a major league game. Cherington sounded confident Cruz will be back soon, but there is still no specific date, which leaves the Pirates waiting on a player whose health has improved without yet bringing complete comfort at the plate. [Read more 🡒]
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For Pirates fans, Martes latest twist is a reminder of just how long he has been part of the leagues fabric, even as his path has taken him well beyond Pittsburgh. He is still the active stolen base leader in Major League Baseball and had played 59 games with Kansas City this season, so his departure does not come quietly. [Read more 🡒]
Pirates Deadline Bet Is Starting To Look Like A Costly Mistake
The Pirates still have a path to make noise in the seasons final stretch, but the 61-64 record and 6.5-game gap in the NL Wild Card race have made every recent decision look bigger. That includes the trade deadline, when Pittsburgh chose to reinforce the bullpen instead of cashing in pieces for future help, a move that was meant to keep the club in the race and instead has landed under a harsher spotlight as the team has gone 5-8 since.
Brandon Lowe and Gregory Soto were among the names analysts believe could have brought back a meaningful return in what looked like a sellers market, and thats where the regret is starting to settle in. The Pirates did not just miss a chance to add depth for the future, they may have chosen the wrong side of the market at the exact moment their margin for error was already thin. [Read more 🡒]