ATLANTA — Hopeful that time out of the lineup will help Andrew McCutchen, manager Clint Hurdle is sitting him for the remainder of the series against the Braves.
Including Monday’s day off, that will give McCutchen four days off in a row.
Could it help?
“They seem to think so,” McCutchen said. “I don’t know. We’ll see.”
McCutchen is hitting .241 with a .311 on-base percentage and a .408 slugging percentage. His 24.8 percent strikeout rate ranks 133rd out of 157 qualified batters in Major League Baseball. His OPS+ — a statistic that normalizes for league and park effects, with 100 being league average — has never been lower than 121 in his first seven years in the majors, or 21 percent better than average. This year it’s 89, or 11 percent below average.
“We sometimes get spoiled with it,” said McCutchen, the 2013 MVP and a five-time All-Star. “When you have the year that you’ve had, the years that I have had, it can sometimes spoil people because I can actually be average. … I’m not hitting how I normally have hit in the past four or five years. I know what I’m capable of doing. I’m not accepting where I’m at, I’m still going to keep working. I haven’t given up on myself, that’s not in my DNA.”
He said he would prefer to be in the lineup.
“I wouldn’t be taking days off,” he said. “Not something I prefer for myself, but I know there’s other people who can step up and pick up the slack and get the job done.”
Starling Marte is playing center field, with Matt Joyce starting in left.
“[McCutchen] and I had a nice conversation, an engaging conversation, after the game [Sunday] in Milwaukee,” Hurdle said. “He’s tried a lot of things. This man’s fought and shown up and done early work, late work, side work, video work. I just encouraged him, in some situations like this, what I’ve seen happen with good players, you just unplug them.
“The manager’s got to do it. I’m just asking you to sign off on it.”
Hurdle would not say one way or the other whether McCutchen would return to the No. 3 spot Friday against the Reds at home.
“Let’s try this because we have tried just about everything else,” Hurdle said
“The easiest thing in my job is to put McCutchen in this lineup. So I’m willing to make a sacrifice. I need you to make one with me for the betterment of this thing moving forward.”
First Published: August 3, 2016, 9:51 p.m.