Game 65: Pirates 8 Twins 2

When I first saw Andrew McCutchen play last August, the first thing I noticed was his height. "Damn, he's short!" I thought. The second thing I noticed was his swing, when he effortlessly took a David Price fastball to the warning track with a flip of his wrist. Tonight, every Pirate fan got their first taste of that swing when Francisco Liriano left a two-strike pitch out over the plate and McCutchen belted it over the left-center fence. This wasn't like Nyjer Morgan's home run last night, which kind of felt like a bolt of lightning, it just a guy doing what he does at the plate. Which is to say that I still think that McCutchen will hit his rough spots this year, but it's hard to imagine him looking any more at home in the Major Leagues than he does right now. When everyone said that the Pirates would need power from "non-traditional sources" in the aftermath of the McLouth trade, McCutchen and Andy LaRoche are the two guys that the people that ...