Phillies leadoff man Andrew McCutchen out for opening day
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CLEARWATER, Fla. – The knee injury that cost Andrew McCutchen four months last season will cost him more time this season.
McCutchen, who had surgery to repair a torn ACL in his left knee on June 14, will open the season on the injured list, Phillies manager Joe Girardi announced on Friday afternoon.
Girardi’s announcement came less than two weeks after McCutchen said it was his “plan” to be ready for opening day.
According to Girardi, McCutchen did not experience a setback and the club hopes to have him back sometime in April.
“The tests continue to improve,” Girardi said. “He has made improvements as we’ve gone along. He continues to get better.
“But as we start to put it together, there’s some things, some hurdles that he still has to clear, like cutting. We’ve seen him out there taking fly balls, we’ve seen him taking batting practice. But we haven’t seen him run full speed.
“Opening day is awful early. It’s March 26. I think that had he been ready for opening day it would have been pretty quick. He would have been on the short end of the rehab scale. But we don’t expect it to be a real long time. Our thought process is we will get him sometime in April. If it was a normal year, the season used to start April 4th or 5th. But with a high-end athlete like him, he’s just not quite ready to go.”
McCutchen had already left the ballpark when Girardi made the announcement so he was not available for comment.
The news on McCutchen was not a complete surprise. Less than a month before opening day, he had yet to play in an exhibition game and had shown a limp in supervised outfield drills.
McCutchen’s situation creates some camp competition as the Phillies look to fill his spot in left field. It’s possible that Adam Haseley and Roman Quinn could both be in the opening day outfield, either in left field or center field. It’s also possible that Jay Bruce could play some left field, though he’s had elbow issues that impact his throwing. The Phils have two other outfielders, Nick Williams and Kyle Garlick, on the 40-man roster, and there are a host of non-roster players in camp who can play the outfield, including Josh Harrison, Phil Gosselin, Mikie Mahtook, Logan Forsythe, Nick Martini and Neil Walker.
The Phils will also have to fill McCutchen’s leadoff spot. Quinn would seem to be a good bet there. Losing McCutchen from the leadoff spot was a huge blow to the Phils last season. He had a .378 on-base percentage, second-best in the majors among leadoff men, when he went down on June 3. Phillies leadoff men had a paltry .295 on-base percentage the rest of the season and that ranked 29th in baseball over that span.
McCutchen, 33, is signed through 2021 as part of a three-year, $50 million contract signed before the 2019 season.
With McCutchen out, the Phillies will have a different opening day left fielder for the 10th time in as many years.
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