We Have Reached the Month of McCutchen and Reynolds

Posted by on

Remember to follow us on Twitter and Facebook for continued Pittsburgh Sports coverage: 

If you're reading this, you're either a Pittsburgh Pirate fan or at least aware of them.  Therefore, you know just how good of an April the team had, and just how bad of a May they followed it up with.  We don't need to harp on that.

However, now, the Pirates go into the month of June on a 2-game winning streak.  They also finished May with their only series win the entire month.  And if we need even more reason to hold on to the hope, we are about to enter the month of Bryan Reynolds and Andrew McCutchen.

Baseball is weird.  It doesn't make sense that the turn of a calendar can change how a player is playing, but it seems more than any other sport that a new month does indeed do just that.  Luckily, our Pirates have two of the best June ballplayers in the majors.

Andrew McCutchen has 7207 career at-bats going into the Pirates' next game on Friday.  He is just five hits away from 2000 in his career.  Of those 7207 at-bats, McCutchen has 1341 of them in the month of June over his career.  And it is very apparent that these are his best at-bats.

In the month of June, McCutchen has his most career runs scored, hits, doubles, triples, and RBI compared to any other month.  He also has his best batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and OPS.  Cutch's career OPS in June is .920.  His second best is .874 in July.  That's no coincidence.

What is a coincidence is just how similar McCutchen and Bryan Reynolds' careers have been as Pirates so far.  Reynolds even played the same position as Cutch at one point in his Pirates career.  It's ironic because, as we know, Reynolds came to the Pirates in the McCutchen trade to the San Francisco Giants.  Well, Reynolds also excels in June.

In the 77 games Reynolds has appeared in over his career in the month of June, he has a 1.013 OPS.  With no qualifiers, that is an extremely impressive number.  Now take into account that Reynolds has been one of the best hitters in the league his whole career and that number is still .150 points higher than any other month in his career.  I consider an .800 OPS over an extended period of time to be good.  1.013 is exceptional.

So it goes without saying that all of Reynolds' career stats are tremendous in the month of June.  And we've already seen how good McCutchen is as well.  The Pirates will play two last place, two 4th place, and a 3rd place team in the month of June.  They also play four games against Milwaukee who, even though they lead the division, are not having their best year either.  

This is the time.  If the Pirates are going to bounce back from their pathetic month of May, it needs to happen in June.  They have the career numbers of Reynolds and McCutchen backing them up, and it will be against below average competition.  June must be a good month for the Pirates.  No excuses.