More than anything, Andrew McCutchen's first season with the Giants has been an unlucky one. When looking at his Baseball Reference page, the numbers do not tell the whole story.
Going into Thursday night's game, McCutchen is hitting just .257 with 10 home runs. His batting average is one point below his career low, his on-base percentage (.348) is the second worst in his career, his slugging percentage (.411) is a career low as is his .759 OPS. And then there's these stats:
McCutchen's hard-hit rate of 45.7 percent is a career high as well as his line-drive rate of 26.2 percent, per FanGraphs. McCutchen is hitting the ball much harder than the back of his baseball card suggests.
"There's nothing you can do after the ball hits the bat," McCutchen said to Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic. "Just kind of shrug it off and move on to the next one. But I definitely feel I've hit the ball hard.
"I don't know how it's been in past years, those numbers, but I feel I've been pretty consistent year to year squaring the ball up, and this year, I've been unlucky."
While McCutchen's numbers may not what he's wished for so far in San Francisco, he's certainly enjoying his time with his new teammates. After nine years in Pittsburgh, the former NL MVP is fitting right in here in the Bay Area. Just look at Hunter Pence's Instagram during the All-Star break.
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From 2011-15, McCutchen made the All-Star Game in five straight seasons. This year he was on the beach with Hunter Pence and Derek Holland.
"I've enjoyed being here and getting to know my teammates off the field. Hunter Pence, his locker is next to mine. We talk a lot. He's a great guy, high energy of course, you all know that," McCutchen said. "We have some things in common, common interests, and that's the cool thing.
"Derek Holland is another guy I hang out with a lot, especially on the road when I'm by myself. He has a lot of video games so I go to his room and we hang out and play video games. In D.C. his room was next to mine and we opened up the connecting door and basically we're walking back and forth between rooms playing video games."
It's clear that McCutchen's enjoying his time in San Francisco and he told Baggarly "this place has been nothing but good to me and my family and we've really enjoyed our time." Time is ticking though and McCutchen could easily be somewhere else next season as he becomes a free agent this offseason.
"I can say at the end of the year I gave it everything I had. There's nothing you can do past that. Whoever makes an offer, or whatever it is, that's on them. That's what they feel the player's value is," McCutchen said.
The Giants can only hope McCutchen flips the script as a notoriously better player in the first half than the second and helps lead them back to the playoffs as they battle in both the NL West and wild card standings.
