PITTSBURGH — Andrew McCutchen went 2 for 2 on Friday in the Pirates’ 13-5 loss to the San Francisco Giants.
He also walked and was hit by a pitch to reach base all four times in his final game of the month of June and close the month with an eight-plate appearance streak of reaching base.
June ended sometime after McCutchen left the game after fouling a ball off his foot. He said he’ll be OK about the foot. But he might not want June to end. After all, it was the second-best month of his entire career.
McCutchen finished June with a 1.193 OPS. In his MVP season of 2013, he never had an OPS over 1.019 in a month. In fact, the only single month he’s done better was July of 2012, when he posted a 1.249 OPS.
This June, only Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees (1.202 OPS) bested McCutchen. Put simply, for the last 30 days, McCutchen has been the best hitter in the National League and he’s also been one of the best versions of himself ever.
It’s made even more impressive by the fact that May was among his worst. He had a .682 OPS this May, which was his worst May on record and the fifth-worst month of his career. As soon as the calendar changed — or perhaps more accurately, as soon as he got two days off in Atlanta and made some adjustments to his swing — McCutchen flipped the switch from barely league average to absolute superstar.
“It was good to see where I started from and see where I’m at now,” McCutchen said. “It was a good month. But I’m not focused on my months. I’m focused on my days. So, I’m going to continue to keep focusing day by day like I have been doing and keep pushing forward.”
While that’s fine and probably appropriate for McCutchen, that doesn’t exactly give justice to his performance. How about this one — it was the 11th-best month of June ever recorded in the history of the National League by a player with at least 100 plate appearances.
“He’s an elite player,” manager Clint Hurdle said. “We lose sight of that. We’ve lost sight of that. … He’s in a good place. He’s confident. He’s convicted in the box. He’s showing us the ability he’s had.”
NOT GERRIT’S NIGHT
Gerrit Cole got roughed up for seven runs on 10 hits over 5.1 innings. The line looks a little bit worse than Cole actually pitched.
He gave up a solo home run on a well-located pitch to Denard Span in the first. In the third, a walk, a misplay and an error contributed a run. In the fourth, he had Johnny Cueto up with two outs and one on and Cueto’s ground ball when right back up the middle for a hit to extend the inning.
“We just had our fair share of balls that were hit hard that just didn’t go our way tonight,” Cole said. “I thought there was a lot of good execution out there tonight. I thought, on the flip side, there was a lot of good execution from their perspective as well, in terms of their approach and in terms of the pitches they were able to spoil and pitches they were able to put in play and get rewarded for.”
Hurdle thought that some of Cole’s fastballs might have been a bit more elevated than they should have been.
“Well the ball was more elevated tonight like it had been,” Hurdle said. “We didn’t get to talk about how he was dominating the bottom of the zone. You saw some of it tonight, but not with the consistency we were seeing it in the past.”
TROUBLE AHEAD, TROUBLE BEHIND
The bullpen melted down behind Cole, with Antonio Bastardo (one run in zero-plus innings), Jhan Mariñez (three in one), Wade LeBlanc (one in 1.2) and Edgar Santana (one in 0.1) all giving up runs.
“Unfortunately, things just didn’t work out for us,” Mariñez said through interpreter Mike Gonzalez. “I went out there and I tried to do my best and do me, but unfortunately, it just didn’t work out.”
NOTES
Josh Bell hit his 30th extra base hit of the first half, a Pirates rookie record. … John Jaso drove in two runs.
