PITTSBURGH — Andrew McCutchen is hitting like the Andrew McCutchen of old. He powered two home runs to left field and went 2 for 4 as the Pirates beat the Colorado Rockies, 5-2 on Tuesday and has been on an incredible tear.
Since being given two games off, making some mechanical adjustments and moving down to the No. 6 spot in the lineup, McCutchen has hit .397/.480/.730 for a ridiculous 1.210 OPS.
Is he back to being an MVP-type hitter? Is he at least doing something that is repeatable and will keep him at or near the level he was expected to produce this season?
Let’s tackle the changes and the impact each might have made.
McCutchen feels pretty strongly that his two days off in Atlanta back in May made a significant impact on the rest of his season. Hear it straight from him:
“What I tell everyone, I feel honestly, I had two very productive days in Atlanta,” he said. “I had two days where I was really able to get myself where I needed to be as opposed trying to get where I needed to be before the game and then taking it out there in the game. I was able to get some work and focus on some things and not have to feel like I had to put it out there in the game.”
“He’s worked with Branson on some things,” manager Clint Hurdle added. “He thought he got to the point where he’d isolated the breakdown in his swing.”
Then there’s the spot in the batting order. McCutchen seemed to put a lot less credence to the theory that changed anything.
“I’m not too sure,” he said. “I’m sure it has its perks. It helps a little bit. You’re able to relax a little bit, see the pitcher a little bit more than in the three hole. … Either way, I think I would have been good.”
McCutchen think the biggest thing was getting his swing back to a good place, and now that it is, he’s working hard at repeating it.
“Just a lot of work. Repeating the same things. Repetition is the father of learning. I’m just trying to repeat things over and over and over, having that same feel, the same tempo. I’m just trying to repeat every thing I’m doing.
“That’s the key in the game, is consistency. They only way you can be consistent is by repeating the same things over and over. That’s all I’ve been trying to do.”
McCutchen seems convinced that the changes that he’s made are real. Does the data back that up? Lets see. First, let’s look at just how dramatic the difference has been since those two days in Atlanta.
The number that jumps off the page — OK they all jump off the page, it’s a legitimate hot streak — is the BABIP. McCutchen has a career .329 BABIP. His April and May BABIP of .214 was unsustainably low, even if he had lost a step over the early part of his career. Since then? Everything has been falling. That’s not sustainable, either. The question is where it will end up.
The second biggest figured that stands out is the ISO. McCutchen went from .159 to .333 and has hit more than twice as many home runs per plate appearance. I asked McCutchen about his recent power surge.
“It’s me staying under myself, everything working together, the body working together, not being over-rotational, staying over the ball, staying on my legs, and I’m able to drive the ball when I do” he said. “I’m not up there trying to hit homers, I’m just trying to put a good swing on the ball. When I do that, sometimes the ball goes out. That’s what I’m trying to do, stay within myself. I’ve never been a home-run hitter. Never will be. I’m not Aaron Judge. I’m 5-foot-10, 190 pounds. I just try to stay within myself every single day.”
So what he’s saying is that the power is there because his swing is in a good place and not some other change in approach or mechanics.
There is a natural correlation between ISO, BABIP, and exit velocity. Hard-hit balls are more often hits and more often extra-base hits than softly hit balls. So I looked at where McCutchen’s exit velocity is compared to earlier in the season.
Wow. That’s an incredible difference. He’s hitting the ball over 20 mph harder at some launch angles.
The BABIP is not going to stay at .465, that much I can promise you. But it seems like the changes McCutchen made to his swing have had a real impact on the way he’s hitting the ball.
NOTES
Gerrit Cole got back on track in a big way, pitching seven three-hit innings. He and Hurdle attributed to keeping his fastball down in the zone and getting good outcomes with the slider in big spots. … John Jaso hit a two-run, pinch-hit home run that gave the Pirates the lead for good. It was his second pinch-hit home run of the season and he’s now batting .400 as a pinch hitter.
