Andrew McCutchen On Batting 2nd, His Injury, And Seeing Old Teammates
PITTSBURGH (93-7 THE FAN) -- Clint Hurdle put Andrew McCutchen second in the lineup on Thursday against the New York Yankees. The former National League MVP hit second for 17 games in 2010, one time in 2011 and one time in 2013.
"The game is still the game, still going to get pitches to hit, just in the lineup earlier and that's it," McCutchen said. By comparison, McCutchen has 78 plate appearances hitting second and 3,230 hitting third.
"You don't change your approach at all, your approach basically depends on what is going on in the game," McCutchen added. "Regardless if you are one, two, three or eight (in the lineup), your approach at the plate depends on the game. It's not any different to me, really."
The first pitch he saw in the 2-hole Thursday, he took over the left field wall.
Cutch on Injury
There are days when we all wake up sore, McCutchen said last year it was like getting up sore and the pain wouldn't go away—every day. McCutchen dealt with knee issues the entire season, but wouldn't say there was a definitive injury.
"It hurt, that's all I can tell you, it hurt," the 29-year-old McCutchen said. "It wasn't normal. It's fine now."
McCutchen hit .194 last March/April, but came back to hit .292 with 23 homers and 96 RBI for the year.
"I don't dwell on the past, I try not to," McCutchen said when asked if he should have taken more time off last season. "I can't change my numbers, can't change what we did, can't change what I did. It's pointless to even dwell on it. You can learn from it, but I don't dwell on it. I focus on what I'm doing now and what I have in front of me. That's how you get better, you become wiser and get better."
Seeing Old Friends
McCutchen said it didn't seem right to see Pedro Alvarez wearing an opponents' jersey on Wednesday against Baltimore.
"It sucks, that was my friend before he was my teammate," McCutchen said. "Hope for the best and hope he does well, I'm always going to be rooting for him, even though he's on another team. I'm gonna miss him, every time I see him with that orange jersey on, I do think it's really weird. But he does have some nice cleats."
At age 19, in his first season with the Pirates, is when McCutchen said he realized baseball was a business.
"My first year into Spring Training, one Sunday, me and a whole bunch of other guys were playing basketball, the following day over half of those guys I played basketball with, were gone. I had never seen anything like that in my life and I was like 'where is everyone', they got released. Just that fast, we were just hanging out. And I haven't seen any of them since. It's a business."