The Pirates only came out of Cincinnati with one win in their three-game set, but I thought this series was a pretty good example of how a team in their situation (y’know, buried in the standings hopelessly with three weeks left in the season) can manage to acquit themselves well over a series despite only winning once in three games. They got some good starts, the bullpen was solid in two of three games, and they had a ton of timely hitting from their young players.
Of course Sunday’s big hit was Andrew McCutchen’s bases-clearing double and I think it’s a good opportunity to talk about ‘Cutch’s season a bit more. On the whole, his season line isn’t so bad. Coming into Sunday his line was .276/.352/.431 with 13 homers, five triples, 31 steals in 40 tries, and his double on Sunday was his 29th. When he was called up last May, I think I would’ve been happy with that line from him in close to a full season. It’s better than most of the seasons he had in the minors with a nice walk rate and some decent pop. For a 23-year old center fielder, that’s a good season.
The problem, of course, is that we know he’s capable of more. His counting stats are only a little ahead of last year’s with 25 extra games in the bank and his rate stats are quite a bit off of last year’s pace. Everything’s even further down considering that almost half of his homers came in a torrid 55 game stretch between April 20 and June 19, when he hit .335/.405/.519 and looked to be a superstar in bloom. Since June 20, when that stretch ended, he’s hitting .230/.308/.374 over the 66 games since, not counting Sunday’s game (which shouldn’t move the dial much either way).
With this being the longest extended slump of his career, I’ve seen some people start worrying a little bit about him in a “what if he’s not as good as we thought he was” sort of way. I’m just not sure it’s time for that kind of worry yet. He’s playing in his first full big league season, he’s battling injuries, the team is going through a rough patch, and he’s only 23. He’s picked things up a bit since the last week of August and he came through with big hits in both games of the Reds’ series and I’m hoping that we can see him finish the season strong.
I still think McCutchen’s got the most complete skill-set of the quartet that’s evolving into the Pirates’ core. Neil Walker’s having a great year but eventually his high strikeout/low walk rates are pretty likely to catch up to him some if he doesn’t improve that part of his game. Jose Tabata’s also got a whole lot of his value tied up in his batting average right now, though at 21 he’s still evolving as a hitter. Pedro Alvarez is a heck of a powerful guy, but he clearly needs to cut back on the strikeouts and his glove isn’t ever going to be an asset anywhere. McCutchen still draws walks, shows some pop, and at least seems to be covering ground in the outfield (I realize that his UZR is terrible this year, but it’s officially becoming a noticeable trend with most advanced defensive metrics that PNC Park center fielders score really poorly while PNC left fielders post-Jason Bay score quite well and though I’m not entirely sure what to make of it I am a bit skeptical of it at this point).
I guess this is all the long way to say that I don’t think it’s time to worry about McCutchen yet. He’s hit a rough patch the last few months here, but that happens to young players. If he can finish the season on an uptick, which I think he will, he’ll finish 2010 with a very good line even if it doesn’t quite match up to what he did in 2009. And he’s still at an age where there’s every reason to think that he’ll get better over the next few seasons. In any case, it’s always gratifying to check the box score and see that after eight straight goose eggs, one of the guys that this franchise needs to be a standard-bearer going forward cleaned off the bases with a double and kept the Bucs from yet another sweep on the road. They just split six games with two likely playoff teams, and they only looked overwhelmed once during the entire week. They’re still going to lose 100 games and they’ll probably lose 105 or more, but they were a much more interesting team to watch over the last seven days than they were in the preceding month.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
