As Josh Harrison takes his shot at Phillies redemption, Andrew McCutchen smiles from afar
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BRADENTON, Fla. — It looked and sounded so familiar. The name, the number, the roar from the crowd, the crack of the bat, the three-quarter-speed trot with the head angled downward. As Josh Harrison stood on the edge of the infield dirt at LECOM Park and watched Andrew McCutchen pass in front of him en route to home, he couldn’t help but think of all of those springtime afternoons they’d shared on this very same field.
“For me and him to be be out there still doing it?” Harrison said. “It’s no surprise to us.”
But the paths they’ve taken? That’s a much different story. On Tuesday afternoon, they were sitting in different clubhouses chasing different dreams: Harrison, a World Series with the Phillies; McCutchen, a bit of closure with the Pirates. But where they are now largely is a function of where they were when they were together.
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It was more than a decade ago now that the duo first joined forces on a roster that was baseball’s next big thing. McCutchen arrived in Pittsburgh in 2009, a former 11th overall pick, who, at 22 years old, was being heralded as one of the game’s top prospects. Two years later, he was joined by Harrison, a 23-year-old sixth-round pick of the Cubs in 2008 whom the Pirates had acquired at the following season’s trade deadline. The two of them eventually were joined by outfielder Starling Marte and starting pitcher Gerrit Cole and a fleet to form the nucleus of one of the most exciting young rosters in Major League Baseball.
In 2011, McCutchen began a five-year run that would see him make five All-Star teams and earn four top-five MVP finishes, including No. 1 in 2013. But it was Harrison’s breakout that, in a lot of ways, signaled the Pirates’ arrival as a potential contender. After struggling at the plate his first couple of seasons, Harrison spent much of the first half of the 2013 season in the minors. Then, in July, he rejoined the big league roster and posted a .757 OPS off the bench down the stretch as the Pirates earned their first playoff berth in 20 years.
“He was a spark plug,” McCutchen said Wednesday as he relaxed in his chair in the Pirates clubhouse. “He does it all for you. He knew and I knew too that if he just got that opportunity and that chance to play a little more consistently that he was going to do well. He got that opportunity, and he was able to showcase how good of a player he is.”
That 2014 season ended with the first of three consecutive heartbreaks, a five-game loss to the Cardinals in a divisional-round series the Pirates had led two games to one. But they still were a team on the rise.
Harrison helped to cement that status the following season, finishing second in the NL batting race and ninth in MVP voting while posting a .315/.347/.490 batting line as a super utility player. Despite an 88-74 finish and wild-card loss to the Giants, the future appeared bright.
In 2015, the Pirates finally looked as if they had arrived. Boasting a lineup composed entirely of players under the age of 30 and a rotation headed by 24-year-old star Cole, the Pirates won 98 games and finished second in the National League in run differential. Problem was, they played in a division that saw three teams win 97-plus games. After finishing two games behind the Cardinals, they lost to the 97-win Cubs in the one-and-done wild-card round.
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“You never know what’s going to happen, but I felt like we were riding a really good wave with those three seasons we had,” McCutchen said. “We were only getting better, I felt.”
They didn’t know it at the time, but the Pirates’ run was already over. After missing the playoffs in 2017, the organization secured its place in MLB ignominy by trading McCutchen and Cole in a span of three days. The following season, Harrison followed them out of town, signing as a free agent with the Tigers. The Pirates have not won more than 69 games since.
“I don’t think any of us thought it was going to end right then,” Harrison said. “But we knew it was going to end at some point. It’s just the nature of the game, the nature of the way things were going. We thought we could stay together; we wanted to, but, at the end of the day, that’s not our call.”
It is no coincidence that both of their paths eventually led them to the Phillies. For five years, McCutchen chased the title that had eluded him in Pittsburgh. After finishing that 2018 season with the Yankees, he signed a four-year deal with the Phillies that coincided with Bryce Harper’s arrival. From there, he moved on to the Brewers, where he watched from afar as his old teammates stormed through October.
“It was special to see a team that was out of it on paper turn it around so quickly,” McCutchen said. “I was happy for them, the guys, Rob Thomson. It was special. You just never know how things can go.”
This offseason, McCutchen, 36, signed a one-year deal to return to a Pirates organization where he is a borderline mythical figure. It is a curtain call of sorts, and he is more than content to enjoy it.
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Harrison? He’s still chasing. The 35-year-old utilityman grew up dreaming of following in the footsteps of his uncle, outfielder John Shelby, a two-time World Series winner with the Orioles and the Dodgers. On Tuesday afternoon, after watching McCutchen homer in the Phillies’ 4-3 loss to the Pirates, Harrison stood at his locker and talked about his desire to finally finish what the two of them started.
“Those years are forever embedded in my memory,” he said, “because it was the last time I made the playoffs. It’s been going on eight years, so I’ll always remember that. I haven’t sniffed it since.”
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