"At some point, teams just say, 'That guy is not going to beat us. We'll try to get him to swing, and if he doesn't, we'll throw five or six [off the plate] and he can go down to first.' I think that's been the approach to Cutch," Hurdle said.
Did teams arrive at that decision when Jung Ho Kang no longer offered lineup protection for McCutchen? Those 11 games coincided with the loss of Kang, out for the season with left knee injuries.
Is it a coincidence? Or did teams become more leery of McCutchen without the threat of Kang lurking behind him?