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PITTSBURGH.<\/strong> The Pittsburgh Pirates terminated the contract of Dominican designated hitter Marcell Ozuna, ending his tenure with the team due to his poor offensive performance during the 2026 season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ozuna, 35, had signed a one-year, $12 million contract before the start of the campaign, with a mutual option for 2027. However, he failed to become the power hitter the organization expected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 70 games played, the veteran recorded a .203 batting average, hit eight home runs, drove in 29 runs, and finished with a .613 OPS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to reports, Pittsburgh will promote utility player Ronny Sim\u00f3n from Triple-A to fill a spot on the active roster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ozuna’s stay in Pittsburgh was marked by offensive struggles, especially at PNC Park, a stadium where he has historically had trouble producing. In that setting, he has accumulated a .229 average with just seven home runs in 65 career games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before arriving at the Pirates, the Dominican played for six seasons with the Atlanta Braves, where he experienced some of the best moments of his career. Between 2020 and 2025, he hit 148 home runs, a figure that placed him among the most productive designated hitters in Major League Baseball during that period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During his career in the Majors, Ozuna has been selected to the All-Star Game three times, won two Silver Slugger Awards and one Gold Glove, in addition to receiving votes for the National League Most Valuable Player award in four seasons, with a fourth-place finish as his best result in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, the Dominican outfielder and designated hitter will look for a new opportunity to continue his career in the Major Leagues as a free agent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" PITTSBURGH. The Pittsburgh Pirates terminated the contract of Dominican designated hitter Marcell Ozuna, ending his tenure with the team due to his poor offensive performance during the 2026 season. Ozuna, 35, had signed a one-year, $12 million contract before the start of the campaign, with a mutual option for 2027. However, he failed to become […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":972,"featured_media":519691,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[35481],"tags":[43601,44182,40231,39774,13766,40853],"class_list":["post-519690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baseball","tag-breakingnews","tag-cover","tag-dominican-republic","tag-major-league-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-thetruthnewspaper"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phj1q1-2bc6","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/Pirates-Giants-Baseball-1-25_1785941117.jpg","dum_api":{"author_name":"Yamell Rossi","author_image":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/cropped-7a176880-76f8-4b0c-9527-4e34feef45e4-96x96.jpg","categories_name":["Baseball"],"featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cdn.deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/Pirates-Giants-Baseball-1-25_1785941117.jpg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/972"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}