PITTSBURGH — It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon. The Pittsburgh Pirates led the Athletics, 11-0, in the bottom of the eighth inning in a game that couldn't have been more inconsequential.

With two outs and a runner on second, Andrew McCutchen walked toward the plate to face right-hander Scott McGough. Time was called before he could dig in. The minimal crowd at PNC Park — announced attendance that day was 16,107 — made sure to give him a standing ovation, knowing his baseball future, especially in Pittsburgh, was up in the air.

For a brief moment, it felt like another special McCutchen memory was brewing. He worked the count full. A base hit would've sent the crowd, along with many watching from home, into a tizzy. But instead, he struck out looking.

"That can't be it," I remember thinking to myself.

It was. Not only was McCutchen's strikeout the final home at-bat for the Pirates' 2025 season, it will more than likely go down as his final plate appearance in his 12 years with the franchise.

On Monday, the Pirates signed veteran designated hitter Marcell Ozuna to a one-year, $12 million deal that includes a mutual option in 2027. The move gave manager Don Kelly's lineup some much needed pop from the right side.

It also seems to have brought an end to McCutchen's time in Pittsburgh.

"Tremendous respect for Andrew, and certainly our desire would be to have a strong relationship with him going forward," general manager Ben Cherington told reporters Tuesday evening. "Right now, obviously focused on the guys that are here in Bradenton and getting ready to prepare for a season."

The same day Cherington made that comment, the Detroit Tigers signed Justin Verlander to a one-year deal. The soon-to-be 43-year-old right-hander will conclude his career where it started, on the team he's most associated with.

Verlander won't be the only star from his era to go out this way. Clayton Kershaw retired a Los Angeles Dodger following last year's World Series. Charlie Morton returned to make one last start for the Atlanta Braves on the final day of the 2025 regular season — the final hit he allowed was to none other than McCutchen, his former teammate.

In 2022, Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina called it quits together in St. Louis, playing one final stretch with their longtime Cardinals teammate Adam Wainwright, who retired the following fall. He, too, was given an appropriate sendoff.

But not every story has a happy ending.

It's fair to say McCutchen deserved a better departure. His importance to the Pirates is equal to, if not greater than in some cases, every other player listed above with their respective franchises. The key difference in his situation, however, pertains to the organization McCutchen calls home.

Unlike the Tigers, Dodgers, Braves and Cardinals, the Pirates weren't in a position to give McCutchen his fairytale ending. Their past decade of failure called for tough decisions to be made. When constructing this year's roster, the Pirates had to choose between nostalgia or improvement. They chose the latter.

"Excited to add Ozuna's bat to the lineup," Kelly said Tuesday. "When you talk about the seasons that he's had, last year being a quote unquote 'down year,' still [hit] 21 home runs and [had a] bunch of RBIs. [He's] a big power bat that we can put in the middle of our order."

In a way, this is what McCutchen wanted. Having covered the team over the past two seasons, it was easy to notice his growing discontent with the status quo. He even voiced as much on record.

"From a team standpoint, I feel like we're beating the same drum," McCutchen told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in September. "Third year back, kind of feels the same just from an instance of where we are. It does kind of feel the same. .... It just leads me to think, like, what's the plan moving forward, and what is it gonna look like next season?

"Just saying, if I happen to be back here, like, what does that look like? I don't know. It's just some questions that [I] have and I'm sure a lot of people have."

McCutchen wanted the Pirates to improve their roster. They did. But unfortunately for him, their additions of Ozuna, Ryan O'Hearn and Brandon Lowe made him the odd man out.

Very few will forget McCutchen's contributions to the franchise.

For millennials like myself, he was the first true star player we've seen don a Pirates uniform. He was the face of a team that ended 20 years of misery. The 2013-2015 Pirates might not have achieved much in the postseason, but they showed everyone that this town is still capable of having a winning baseball team.

Last week on my podcast "Bucco Territory," we interviewed Pirates rookie right-hander Bubba Chandler. The show has a pair of co-hosts, one of them being former Pirates All-Star utility man Josh Harrison. During the interview, Chandler made a point to express his admiration for what Harrison, McCutchen and the rest of their teammates achieved in 2013.

"I watch that video of Russell Martin and stuff pretty regularly," Chandler said. " ... When we were in minor league camp, we always played it in spring training. That's what we're getting back to. It's what we should strive to be. Not the wild card. The wild card was great, but getting in the playoffs, and bringing winning baseball back to Pittsburgh."

Chandler's comments highlight the only true way for this McCutchen-Pirates saga to end properly. If he will indeed no longer be around, his absence must be justified.

The best way the Pirates can honor Andrew McCutchen is to win in 2026.

Rather than continuing to reminisce on the good times from more than a decade back, create new memories this summer — ones that might not replace Martin's homer, but prove to be just as relevant. Recognize what the best teams of the McCutchen era achieved, and take it a step further.

It would obviously be a shame for McCutchen to just miss out on being a part of the organization's next playoff team. But come September, if PNC Park is packed with fans watching meaningful baseball, unlike the scene during McCutchen's final at-bat in 2025, the sad ending to his personal story will have been worth it.

McCutchen returned in 2023 hoping to help bring the city he calls home back to the postseason. Accomplishing that mission in 2026, even with him no longer in the mix, is now the best way for this story to end.

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