UPDATE (5:44pm PT on Wednesday): Giants right fielder Andrew McCutchen has cleared revocable waivers, according to The Athletic. That means he can be traded to any team prior to the August 31 deadline.
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NEW YORK — Bruce Bochy gave Buster Posey, Brandon Crawford and Brandon Belt a day off on Tuesday and said he was just trying to get some regulars a day off. When he said the same of Andrew McCutchen on Wednesday, it came with some additional head-scratching.
McCutchen was put on waivers earlier this week, so the timing of a day off for the man who leads the Giants in starts was certainly suspicious. Team officials insisted it was just a normal day off for McCutchen, but that’s not quite true. Per multiple sources, McCutchen was not at Citi Field when the Giants took the field for batting practice, although he arrived shortly thereafter.
At the very least, it appears the Giants told McCutchen to hold off on arriving, with the possibility that he could be traded at any point. It is not unusual for Bochy to give a veteran a day off, and McCutchen hasn’t missed a game this month, getting just three rest days when the whole team was off. But it certainly is unusual for a player to arrive that late, and it’s not hard to read the tea leaves given that McCutchen was put on waivers. It’s unclear if he has passed through without getting claimed, but as a free agent at the end of the year, McCutchen represents just about the last real chance for the front office to get some prospects back in what has become a lost season.
As of Wednesday evening, McCutchen was still a Giant. Bochy said he’s expected in the lineup against Jacob deGrom for the series finale.
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“We’ve been grinding him,” Bochy said. “He’ll be back in there tomorrow.”