Coming into the season I was expecting a little drop in Andrew McCutchen's play (a slight sophomore slump before he really breaks out).  In our community projections I put him at .273/.341/.415, so I guess .279/.352/.422 shouldn't surprise me too much.  The only reason it does is because he got off to such a great start again.  I'm just now realizing that this is the first time we've seen Cutch struggle for an extended period of time.

Going by OPS (because it's easy and I'm lazy) his numbers for the 4 months in 2009 were .774, .781, 1.004, .794.  Three very consistent months with one huge month stuck in between.  He ended with a very impressive .836 OPS for the season.  The first 3 months of 2010 he went .786, .901, .809 leaving him at exactly .836 again after the game June 30.

July would be his first month with an OPS below the .774 he posted in his first month in the majors, dropping all the way to .661.  The early part of August has been even worse.  In total since July 1 he's hitting .220/.279/.330 (.609 OPS).  This has dropped his season line from .301/.379/.457 to .279/.352/.422.

It could be any number of factors combining here to hurt his recent performance.  The long season with few days off catching up to him, nagging injuries piling up, pitchers finally finding a weakness, bad luck, etc.  Anything in particular that anyone has noticed that he's doing differently recently?