Major League Baseball

McCutchen bruises knee, loses NL batting lead

Published Sep. 28, 2012 12:19 a.m. ET

foxsports

Andrew McCutchen bruised his left knee, came out of Pittsburgh's 6-5 loss to the New York Mets on Thursday and dropped out of the NL batting lead.

McCutchen trapped a soft fly into short center by Daniel Murphy in the seventh inning and threw to second to force Ruben Tejada, who began the play on first base and wasn't sure whether the ball was caught. McCutchen then was taken out of the game.

He said it felt as if he hit a brick wall.

''It's all right. It's not broken or anything,'' McCutchen said. ''It'll be fine. I'm ready to go.''

Pittsburgh didn't appear to think the injury was very serious.

''We re-evaluate tomorrow when we get back,'' manager Clint Hurdle said.

McCutchen was 0 for 4 with two strikeouts against 20-game winner R.A. Dickey, dropping his average to .332 and falling one point behind San Francisco's Buster Posey (.333) for the NL batting title. Posey went 2 for in the NL West champion Giants 7-3 win over Arizona.

San Francisco's Melky Cabrera, serving a 50-game drug suspension, is hitting .346 but will fall one appearance short of qualifying after the rule for qualifying was changed last week by Major League Baseball and the players' union at Cabrera's request.