Oneil Cruz hits 122.9 mph home run, hardest-hit ball since Statcast started tracking in 2015

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Pittsburgh's Oneil Cruz had the hardest-hit ball since Statcast started tracking in 2015, a home run off Milwaukee's Logan Henderson on Sunday that left the bat at 122.9 mph and splashed into the Allegheny River.

Cruz's leadoff drive to right in the third inning on a 92.2 mph fastball traveled 432 feet and cut the Pirates' deficit to 3-1 in a 6-5 loss.

"I connected really well. It feels even better just to know that it's the hardest hit ball in the history of Statcast," Cruz said through an interpreter. "It doesn't matter how hard the ball was hit. I just go out and make good contact. Sometimes, I don't even try to make the hardest contact.”

Cruz had the previous hardest-hit ball, a 122.4 mph single on Aug. 24, 2022. Miami's Giancarlo Stanton had the prior hardest-hit home run at 121.8 mph, a drive off Gio Gonzalez at Washington on Aug. 9, 2017.

“The reason behind my at-bats is just to put good contact on the the ball,” Cruz said. “Whatever happens, happens.”

The 6-foot-7, 240-pound outfielder has hit six of the 83 home runs that have reached the river since PNC Park opened in 2001.

“I'm really glad that got out of the stadium because if that would've been into the stands, that thing is flying,” Pittsburgh manager Don Kelly said. "I can't say enough about him and how he played, how he's been playing, especially in this series.

“Superstar-type stuff. ... Guys continue to grind, continue to battle. I think Oneil is, obviously, a huge part of that in what he's doing. It's contagious, too.”

Cruz leads the Pirates with 11 homers this season, including three in his past three games. He hit two Friday, tying it 4-all in the ninth with his second, for his first multi-homer game in a 6-5 win over the Brewers and had a 114.3 mph triple to drive in the winning run of a 2-1 victory Saturday.

“It's just about the focus and the work that I've been putting in lately," Cruz said. “That's the main key. It always feels good as a player just to be able to do that in one series.”

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Pittsburgh Pirates center fielder Oneil Cruz catches a line drive hit by Milwaukee Brewers' Jackson Chourio during the fifth inning of a baseball game Sunday, May 25, 2025, in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Matt Freed)

Pittsburgh Pirates' Oneil Cruz, left, is greeted by Andrew McCutchen, right, after hitting a home run during the third inning of a baseball game against the Milwaukee Brewers, Sunday, May 25, 2025, in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Matt Freed)

Pittsburgh Pirates' Oneil Cruz rounds the bases after hitting a home run during the third inning of a baseball game against the Milwaukee Brewers, Sunday, May 25, 2025, in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Matt Freed)

Pittsburgh Pirates' Oneil Cruz rounds the bases after hitting a home run during the third inning of a baseball game against the Milwaukee Brewers, Sunday, May 25, 2025, in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Matt Freed)

States will share $10 billion for rural health care next year in a program that aims to offset the Trump administration's massive budget cuts to rural hospitals, federal officials announced Monday.

But while every state applied for money from the Rural Health Transformation Program, it won't be distributed equally. And critics worry that the funding might be pulled back if a state's policies don't match up with the administration's.

Officials said the average award for 2026 is $200 million, and the fund puts a total of $50 billion into rural health programs over five years. States propose how to spend their awards, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services assigns project officers to support each state, said agency administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz.

“This fund was crafted as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill, signed only six months ago now into law, in order to push states to be creative," Oz said in a call with reporters Monday.

Under the program, half of the money is equally distributed to each state. The other half is allocated based on a formula developed by CMS that considered rural population size, the financial health of a state’s medical facilities and health outcomes for a state’s population.

The formula also ties $12 billion of the five-year funding to whether states are implementing health policies prioritized by the Trump administration's “Make America Healthy Again” initiative. Examples include requiring nutrition education for health care providers, having schools participate in the Presidential Fitness Test or banning the use of SNAP benefits for so-called junk foods, Oz said.

Several Republican-led states — including Arkansas, Iowa, Louisiana, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas — have already adopted rules banning the purchase of foods like candy and soda with SNAP benefits.

The money that the states get will be recalculated annually, Oz said, allowing the administration to “claw back” funds if, for example, state leaders don't pass promised policies. Oz said the clawbacks are not punishments, but leverage governors can use to push policies by pointing to the potential loss of millions.

“I've already heard governors express that sentiment that this is not a threat, that this is actually an empowering element of the One Big Beautiful Bill," he said.

Carrie Cochran-McClain, chief policy officer with the National Rural Health Association, said she’s heard from a number of Democratic-led states that refused to include such restrictions on SNAP benefits even though it could hurt their chance to get more money from the fund.

“It’s not where their state leadership is,” she said.

Oz and other federal officials have touted the program as a 50% increase in Medicaid investments in rural health care. Rep. Don Bacon, a Republican from Nebraska who has been critical of many of the administration’s policies but voted for the budget bill that slashed Medicaid, pointed to the fund when recently questioned about how the cuts would hurt rural hospitals.

“That’s why we added a $50 billion rural hospital fund, to help any hospital that’s struggling,” Bacon said. “This money is meant to keep hospitals afloat.”

But experts say it won't nearly offset the losses that struggling rural hospitals will face from the federal spending law's $1.2 trillion cut from the federal budget over the next decade, primarily from Medicaid. Millions of people are also expected to lose Medicaid benefits.

Estimates suggest rural hospitals could lose around $137 billion over the next decade because of the budget measure. As many as 300 rural hospitals were at risk for closure because of the GOP’s spending package, according to an analysis by The Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“When you put that up against the $50 billion for the Rural Health Transformation Fund, you know — that math does not add up,” Cochran-McClain said.

She also said there's no guarantee that the funding will go to rural hospitals in need. For example, she noted, one state’s application included a proposal for healthier, locally sourced school lunch options in rural areas.

And even though innovation is a goal of the program, Cochran-McClain said it's tough for rural hospitals to innovate when they were struggling to break even before Congress’ Medicaid cuts.

“We talk to rural providers every day that say, ‘I would really love to do x, y, z, but I’m concerned about, you know, meeting payroll at the end of the month,’” she said. “So when you’re in that kind of crisis mode, it is, I would argue, almost impossible to do true innovation.”

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

FILE - Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, speaks during an event about drug prices with President Donald Trump, Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)