Phillies news: Andrew McCutchen reacts to his own walk-off home run

The Philadelphia Phillies were down 5-3 with one out and runners on the corners in the bottom of the ninth on Monday night.

Then Andrew McCutchen happened.

For his 261st career home run, Cutch took a first-pitch fastball from Nationals closer Brad Hand, and sent it into the right-field stands. It was the eighth walk-off home run of his career. According to Sarah Langs, McCutchen has the third-most career walk-off homers among active players, behind Ryan Zimmerman and Albert Pujols.

Thanks to McCutchen, the Phillies have now won 50 games and are above .500 once again.

After the game, Cutch took to Twitter to give fans a glimpse into what it feels like to hit a walk-off home run:

Do the three clouds signify the three runs his homer drove in, or am I overanalyzing emojis again?

After the game, the modest McCutchen gave the credit to his team:

“We’re a resilient club here. We know what we’re capable of doing. It doesn’t matter what the score is. It doesn’t matter what inning it is. If we keep it close, we know we have the opportunity to win that ball game. We never felt like we were out of it.”

Andrew McCutchen has been crucial to the Phillies’ success this summer.

Cutch is having an absolutely epic summer. In early July, he hit his second grand slam of the season as the fourth batter in a game against the Chicago Cubs. His first, back on June 23, was the first pinch-hit grand slam of his career, and the first by a Phillie since 2017.

Since June 1, McCutchen is hitting .283/.404/.580 with a .984 OPS, seven doubles, 11 home runs, and 34 RBI in 44 games.

Good thing, too, because the Phillies’ pitching is in dire straits. Despite Joe Girardi saying that Spencer Howard would be ‘let loose’ for Monday’s start, the rookie left the game in the fourth inning due to a blister on his middle finger. That’s irony for you.

The starting rotation has been just as much of a problem as the bullpen lately, if not more. Vince Velasquez has a 10+ ERA over his last four starts, and Zach Eflin is on the Injured List.

In a twist of fate, after Howard allowed four earned runs on six hits and couldn’t get out of the fourth inning on Monday, Brandon Kintzler, Connor Brogdon, Jose Alvarado, and Hector Neris combined for over four shutout innings. Archie Bradley came in to pitch the ninth and allowed a run, but Cutch more than made up for it.

As a funny coincidence, one of Cutch’s eight career walk-off home runs was off Bradley back in 2017.

All of the Phillies’ six runs came on a pair of three-run homers, one from Rhys Hoskins in the sixth inning, and McCutchen’s walk-off blast. This is Cutch’s 13th season in the big leagues, but the 34-year-old clearly still has plenty left in the tank.

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