'I refuse to be in that situation': As Pirates plummet, Andrew McCutchen aims to avoid collapse

As their season spirals further away from an amazing April and closer to the bottom of the NL Central standings, the Pittsburgh Pirates are searching for solutions to stop their descent.

Since a 20-9 start, the Pirates (41-52) are playing at a .333 winning percentage, have lost twice as many games as they’ve won and slipped to 10½ games out of both first place and wild-card contention.

After an 8-4 loss in 10 innings to the San Francisco Giants on Sunday, their 10th defeat in 12 games, designated hitter Andrew McCutchen said the Pirates’ strong start is proof they can turn the season around and was adamant about refusing to endure another late-season collapse without a fight.

McCutchen issued a stern warning for those who disagree.

“If anyone’s given up on the team, don’t show up or don’t be here. If anyone in this clubhouse has given up, they shouldn’t be here, either,” said McCutchen, who was activated Sunday from the 10-day injured list. “I’ve seen teams in a lot worse places make up some ground; next thing they know, they’re in it. That’s what we need to do. That’s what we have to think.”

Despite losing 10 of past 12 games, Andrew McCutchen believes the Pirates still have a chance to turn around their season. pic.twitter.com/ArCMt4sGDq

— Kevin Gorman (@KevinGormanPGH) July 16, 2023

The Pirates are on a 71-win pace, but history shows that trajectory could change if they continue their poor play. They are only two games ahead of their record through 93 games last year (39-54), when they finished 62-100, and five games ahead of their 93-game pace in 2021, when they finished 61-101.

A 15-year veteran who endured late-season collapses with the Pirates in 2011 and 2012 before clinching three consecutive wild-card playoff berths, McCutchen believes it would be much more difficult to make up ground in the standings if they were 20-plus games out of first place.

“People would think we’d be in a lot worse position. We could be the Oakland A’s,” McCutchen said of the AL West team with the worst record in the major leagues (25-69) after a 6-23 start in April. “Nothing against Oakland, but we could be in that position, where we have such a tough start in the beginning and now we’re trying to play catch-up. Regardless, you can still say that we had such a good April that we put ourselves in the position to where we’re struggling but we’re still in a place where we can make up some ground. That’s the way that I like to look at it.”

Where McCutchen focused on a positive approach, Pirates outfielder Bryan Reynolds was more blunt in his assessment: “We just haven’t been playing good baseball recently. We’ve played good baseball this year, so we’ve shown that we can. We have to get back to that.”

Reynolds said the clubhouse vibe remains “good” and their demeanor hasn’t changed while calling the Pirates’ problems “pretty obvious.”

“If we pitch, we don’t hit. If we hit, we give up runs,” said Reynolds, who signed an eight-year, $106.75 million contract extension in April. “It’s hard to win like that. We just have to play better baseball.”

In late April, McCutchen warned that the Pirates had to be careful not to get on their high horse about the fast start and not get complacent like in 2012, when they lost 22 of their final 31 games.

“The funny thing about the game is we could be right here and talking about the inconsistencies and things aren’t where we want them to be, then 10 days from now, we could be like, ‘What’s the main focus of why you guys are successful?’” McCutchen said.

“It’s one or the other, right? It’s a double-edged sword: one being good, one being not so good. The way I look at it is, I try not to focus so much on inconsistencies or the not-so-good, the losses because just as quickly we could be down, we can be back up and having a good time in here and everybody’s talking about how good we are again. I try not to focus on the bad. I try to focus on the good, keep it there and focus on the positive so we can have something to have a goal in mind. That’s why we have to keep it there. You can easily fall down. You can accept things really quickly in this game. But I’ve been there before and I refuse to be in that situation.”

Since ending April with a 20-9 record, the Pirates are playing at a .333 winning percentage. Andrew McCutchen addressed that and the urgency to turn it around before the trade deadline. pic.twitter.com/3uzcssTplK

— Kevin Gorman (@KevinGormanPGH) July 16, 2023

The Pirates know if they don’t turn things around soon, their team could be dismantled, as the Aug. 1 trade deadline is only two weeks away. McCutchen is one of a handful of veterans, along with first basemen Ji-Man Choi and Carlos Santana and left-handed pitcher Rich Hill, on one-year contracts with the Pirates this season.

Could the looming trade deadline provide a sense of urgency?

“I don’t know. I don’t know what it gives the team,” McCutchen said. “From my standpoint, if you like the team that you’re on and you like where you are, then we need to start winning some ballgames because if you continue the cycle that we’re going in right now, it’s going to be a different ballclub by the trade deadline, more than likely. So, we need to grind, have each other’s back and grind for each other and just keep the team together.”