Phillies news and rumors 4/15: Andrew McCutchen praises Philadelphia fans after 300th home run

Andrew McCutchen hit 47 homers across three seasons with the Phillies. (Cheryl Pursell)

Barring an almost unprecedented late-career run, 300 will be the last round-number home run milestone for Andrew McCutchen. He’s relieved to finally have the chase behind him, and it’s fitting that he became the 160th member of the 300 club while wearing a Pirates uniform.

McCutchen accomplished the feat with a double-whammy of nostalgia, though, hitting No. 300 in Philadelphia, where career homer No. 224 led off the 2019 season and a three-year stint with the Phillies. Over those three years, McCutchen hit 47 homers — a decent total even if he hadn’t missed 103 games in Year 1 and a pandemic hadn’t chopped off 102 more in Year 2. He, with the help of his alter-ego Uncle Larry, became a fan favorite during his stint, especially as the primary leadoff hitter for the first legitimately competitive Phillies team since the start of the playoff drought.

“It’s kinda hard,” McCutchen said after the game, “to be liked on both sides of the state.”

McCutchen is now three years removed from his Phillies days, and had already returned to Citizens Bank Park as a visitor with the Milwaukee Brewers early in 2022. But the home crowd still welcomed McCutchen warmly in the first leg of the four-game set on Thursday night.

“I appreciate them for that,” McCutchen said. “Because I was a guy making $20 million one year, and I wasn’t holding my end of the bargain. And I felt like I should’ve done better.”

That season was 2021, after which the Phillies would buy out his contract instead of exercising a club option for a fourth season. It was his most complete season in Philadelphia; he played 144 games and hit 27 homers. But it followed two years of mixed results.

The first year of the $50 million deal saw McCutchen get off to a hot start — the aforementioned homer on Opening Day igniting a .256/.378/.457 slash in over a third of the schedule, but his season ended in June when he tore his ACL during a rundown in San Diego. It’s hard to blame him — or even Jean Segura — for the freak ACL tear, but it was a mostly lost season nonetheless. The pandemic-shortened next season was McCutchen’s least productive as a Phillie, at least by OBP, slugging percentage and, naturally, OPS.

McCutchen was never the reason those Phillies teams fell short of October. But as a professional athlete, especially a former MVP, he’ll naturally hold himself to high expectations, both in terms of durability (despite, again, the freak nature of the injury) and production.

“But they still supported me and appreciated me,” McCutchen reflected after his 300th homer capped off the weekend split for the now-11-5 Pirates. “And, you know, I appreciate them for that. And I’ll appreciate them for the rest of my life for it.”

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The Associated Press’ Anthony SanFilippo contributed to this report.