Andrew McCutchen has two hits in each of the Pirates' last four games. He's hitting .343/.405/.657 since the All-Star Break. He has 31 doubles this year, which is more than he hit last year and only four shy of his career high of 35. He's hitting .375 against lefties with a 1.146 OPS. His slugging percentage is over .500 on the season with last night's single and double. With his two-run double and diving catch to stymie a Marlin rally in the seventh inning last night, he more or less set the table for Josh Harrison's walkoff home run all by himself. His wOBA is .379, which is phenomenal.
The Pirates have the highest winning percentage in baseball, and that doesn't happen without a team full of good baseball players having good seasons. There's been a lot of talk lately about how valuable Russell Martin and Francisco Liriano have been to the Pirates this year and that one of the two of them is the Pirates' MVP. This isn't to disparage those guys at all, because they've probably been the singular two best free agent signings in franchise history, but Andrew McCutchen is the best and most valuable player on the Pirates, and he is also one of the best and most valuable players in the National League. When a team has a breakout season like the Pirates are having this year, there is a tendency to look at the new guys on the team and attribute a bunch of the success to them. Remember: since the day of the Nate McLouth trade, it's been clear that the team was tying its future to Andrew McCutchen. The future looks like it's finally arriving, and McCutchen is smack in the center of it.
