McCutchen’s clutch hit stings Phillies

Associated Press

PITTSBURGH

Andrew McCutchen isn’t much for postgame dog piles or pie-in-the-face celebrations anymore.

That’s why the All-Star center fielder deftly ducked out of the way of a hastily made pie in the moments after his single with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning rallied the Pittsburgh Pirates past the Philadelphia Phillies 5-4 on Sunday.

“I’ve had about enough of those,” McCutchen said.

The Pirates can live with their franchise cornerstone being a killjoy if he continues to produce in the clutch.

McCutchen’s third hit of the day — a smash off the center-field wall against reliever David Herndon (0-1) — let pinch-runner Josh Harrison trot home from third to give the Pirates their second walk-off win against the Phillies in less than 24 hours.

Pittsburgh won 2-1 in 10 innings Saturday night. This one was more impressive considering Philadelphia appeared to be in command after taking a 4-1 lead on Juan Pierre’s two-run single in the seventh.

Yet the Pirates, much as they did during their stirring start to the 2011 season, kept chipping away. Pittsburgh scored twice in the seventh to get within one and tied it on rookie Matt Hague’s RBI single off Antonio Bastardo in the eighth.

Joel Hanrahan (1-0) pitched a perfect ninth for Pittsburgh, setting the stage for another dramatic victory over the five-time defending NL East champions.

“We had a good chance to win this series and we didn’t,” Philadelphia manager Charlie Manuel said. “It’s disappointing but it’s just three games into the season. The disappointing part for me is we got real good starting pitching but we only won once. You hate to waste that kind of pitching.”

Pedro Alvarez homered for Pittsburgh and Casey McGehee hit two doubles, the second one a shot to left-center leading off the ninth.

Harrison entered and moved to third on Alex Presley’s sacrifice. Herndon struck out Jose Tabata and worked the count to 3-2 before McCutchen drilled a fastball over the head of center fielder Shane Victorino to send the Pirates pouring out of the dugout.

“That’s what we preached in spring training, to finish and go from there,” McCutchen said.

Hunter Pence hit his first home run of the season and drove in two runs for Philadelphia.