It wasn’t a smile on Andrew McCutchen’s face so much as it was a grimace, the Pittsburgh Pirates designated hitter gritting his teeth as he labored around the basepaths after hitting a pair of home runs.

McCutchen has been dealing with tightness in his left quad, an injury that kept him from starting the Pirates’ previous three games. He showed he can still swing a bat, as two of his swings resulted in two-run homers in a 6-5 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Sunday.

“I’m not where I need to be, but I’m going to do what I can when I’m up there,” McCutchen said on the SportsNet Pittsburgh postgame show. “I’m here to hit right now, so that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to try my best. If I’ve got to gimp around the bases, then I’m going to gimp. I’m just trying to do my job.”

With the Pirates enduring their worst stretch of the season, McCutchen provided an inspiring performance by going 2 for 5 with four RBIs from the leadoff spot. He produced the 20th career multi-homer game of his 16-year major league career, taking former Pirates pitchers Tyler Glasnow and Anthony Banda deep.

The first two-run shot came in the third inning, with the Pirates already trailing, 4-0. With a 2-2 count, McCutchen barreled Glasnow’s 98.4-mph fastball 408 feet to right, where Andy Pages attempted to rob it only for the ball to bounce off his glove at the top of the wall.

The second two-run shot came in the eighth, after Ji Hwan Bae hit a leadoff single off the left-handed Banda. This time, McCutchen crushed a 96.5-mph fastball over the middle, driving it 408 feet to the left field bleachers for his 16th homer of the season.

“It shows the caliber of player he is,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “Two huge homers. We get down four early and he gets us on the board and then comes back in the eighth and gets a pitch. It just shows you how good of a player he actually is, because of the fact that he is grinding.”

Asked if it was safe to say that McCutchen is 100%, Shelton was definitive in his dismissal of the question.

“No, that’s not safe to say,” Shelton said. “I would say swinging the bat, he’s fine. He’s still moving gingerly, if you watch him. If he can get to just jog, he’s in a good spot. He’s still grinding a little bit. He’s able to get his swing off, obviously, but other than that he’s still grinding a little bit.”

After an extra-inning loss that served as the seventh consecutive and ninth in a 10-game span, McCutchen sent a message to the Pirates that they are in a brutal stretch of the season against the NL West and there is no time to be making excuses or feeling sorry for themselves.

That a 37-year-old who suffered a season-ending partial tear of his left Achilles last Sept. 4 is playing through pain is symbolic of the urgency the last-place Pirates (56-61) must show in ending their spiral if they want to remain in contention for the NL Central title or the race for a wild card spot.

“My 70% is better than 0%,” McCutchen said. “If I can swing the bat, I’m going to swing it. If I can’t run, I can’t run. But my job is to hit. I’m the DH. They’re not asking me to steal bases or anything. I’m just trying to do my job, keep the line moving, get the next guy up. … That’s what I’m going to do. I took a few days off and I’m like, ‘All right, I’m ready to go.’ That’s where I am now. Hopefully, I’ll wake up tomorrow and feel a little better. As long as I can swing, I’m going to get in there.”

On a day that could have been about his heroics, McCutchen reminded everyone, both with his words and actions, that baseball can be unforgiving.

His final at-bat, in the top of the 10th inning, was proof.

McCutchen worked a 3-0 count against Dodgers right-hander Evan Phillips by refusing to chase three pitches below the strike zone. McCutchen then took a fastball down the middle for a called strike before resisting the temptation to swing on a sweeper at the bottom of the strike zone.

The five-time All-Star and 2013 NL MVP tossed his bat and started to peel off protective equipment when home plate umpire Shane Livensparger signaled a called strike. McCutchen called timeout, retrieved his bat then went down looking at a fastball on the outside corner for a strikeout.

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“The game takes no prisoners,” McCutchen said. “It doesn’t matter who are you. It doesn’t matter where you’re from or what you did yesterday. You’ve got to show up the next day and be ready to win. You can’t feel bad for yourself. The game doesn’t feel bad for anybody. The game doesn’t care who you are. The game doesn’t care what you did last year. The game don’t care if you were an MVP or an All-Star. You’ve got to be ready to go the next day. That’s what I’ve learned.

“I don’t care that I hit two homers today. I’ve got to be ready to go tomorrow, trying to win a ballgame. That’s what we have to do. We’ve got to put our big boy pants on and go. No one feels bad for anybody. We don’t feel bad for each other in here. Shake it off and get ready to go the next day.”

Kevin Gorman is a TribLive reporter covering the Pirates. A Baldwin native and Penn State graduate, he joined the Trib in 1999 and has covered high school sports, Pitt football and basketball and was a sports columnist for 10 years. He can be reached at kgorman@triblive.com.