The Magic of the Phitens: McCutchen’s Necklaces Spark Pirates’ Offense

PITTSBURGH — Given the performance from the offense to start the season, the Pittsburgh Pirates would have done just about anything to break a team-wide slump.

The Pirates entered Monday’s game against the Washington Nationals with an abysmal .184 batting average and a .562 OPS.

During a rough patch, a team looks to its veterans for guidance. The unquestioned leader of the Pirates is 38-year-old Andrew McCutchen, and he had an idea to keep things loose.

During his 17-year career, McCutchen has worn an entwined Phiten necklace when he’s stepped onto the field.

On Monday, the whole team wore them, and the Pirates’ offense erupted in a 10-3 win at PNC Park.

“When it comes to baseball, you’ll do whatever it takes to turn things around,” McCutchen explained. Good ol’ friends there at Phiten. We worked something out to where they could send me some. They did. It’s just kind of cool that we were able to do something as a team, then it translated into the game and we had the game that we did today.

“You could say coincidence, I guess. But I think it’s more just these are the things that you need to do as a team sometimes to win ballgames. Sometimes it takes buying in just to do something. We just all bought in on it and ran with it. It worked out for us.”

10 runs for the Pirates set a season-high. They also collected 14 hits, the most they’ve had in a game so far this year.

Everybody contributed in the win. All nine players who had an at-bat had at least one hit. Oneil Cruz, Bryan Reynolds, Enmanuel Valdez, Ke’Bryan Hayes and Adam Frazier each had two-apiece.

“It was nice to get contributions, but the fact that everybody got involved,” manager Derek Shelton, who got his 300th-career victory said. “I think team wide, it was the best approach we’ve had all year.”

The Pirates were fresh of a sluggish series in Cincinnati in which they were swept and scored only five runs on 10 hits combined between three games.

But thanks largely to the Phiten necklaces, the Pirates came out loose on Monday. Guys were showing them off in the dugout after big plays and there was much more of a relaxed feel.

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It’s like the team took a collective deep breath and got back to the basics. And it paid off.

“I was fired up,” Bryan Reynolds said on seeing the team rally around the Phitens. “I think everybody wore Phitens in middle school or high school. I think it took us all back to that.”

The display of the necklaces on Monday night brought back shades of the ‘Zoltan Z’ the Pirates incorporated in the years leading up to and eventually through their memorable 2013 season.

McCutchen, who was a 26 years old on that 2013 team, mentioned veteran catcher Rod Barajas as the founder of that idea.

Now, McCutchen is the veteran, and he was the one to come up with an idea to unite the team and keep things loose. It’s exactly the type of leadership the Pirates need from the fan favorite as his career comes full-circle.

“It’s been great,” Henry Davis said on McCutchen’s leadership. “I think being around the block so much, he’s been through it all and is someone we can really rely on and lean on in moments of adversity. It’s great to have him.”

Davis, who was still wearing the Phiten necklace during his postgame interview, joked he might never take it off.

It seemed like the only chance the Pirates had at breaking out of their prolonged struggles was some type of superpower. That’s how bad things got.

At least for a night, the Phiten necklaces provided that. But you better believe the team will be wearing them again on Tuesday, and maybe they’ll continue to provide some magic.

“Hey, man, whatever it takes,” said Shelton. “I don’t care. Whatever it takes.”