Andrew McCutchen looks to the field from the visitors’ dugout Sunday in Phoenix. — GETTY
BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC
Roundup of a lot of randomness from a lot of time around our teams …
• It doesn’t take much to see that Andrew McCutchen isn’t himself these days. No more than a casual glance at his statistics, really: He’s batting .194 through the Pirates’ first month, with two home runs, five extra-base hits and zero steals.
It also doesn’t take much to see — or hear — that he isn’t healthy. On April 11, for the first time after a spring in which he was rested with what the team was vaguely describing as “lower-body soreness,” he came clean with reporters that his left knee was causing him “acute” pain and accounted for at least part, if not all, of that soreness. He further rated his health at “80 percent.”
I received a tip two days ago that McCutchen’s knee has a serious issue, this from a source outside the Pirates, and it was accompanied by a highly specific diagnosis. I won’t share that diagnosis because it was flatly rejected by a team source I trust implicitly. But when I asked that same team source if McCutchen’s condition could be debilitating in the long term, the source replied, “Shouldn’t be.”
Note the caution therein.
(I should note, too, that the latter source was the only one who correctly forecast that Charlie Morton would not be ready to start the season coming off hip surgery.)
No diagnosis is ever completely clear-cut, but knees are about as simple as it gets in sports medicine: Injuries are identified, then treated, usually with simple procedures and short recovery periods, and the career continues unabated. So it set off alarm bells with me right away that McCutchen’s only treatment back in spring training was rest, and that’s all it’s been since. And once he revealed the condition is causing him “acute” pain, that pretty much ruled out ligament issues.
I don’t know where this is headed, but it sounds ominous at the moment. Almost as much as the highly unusual — in baseball, anyway — secrecy around the matter.
• One of my favorite dynamics within the Pirates’ terrific clubhouse is the one among the starting pitchers: Gerrit Cole is off to a sensational start — 4-0, 1.76 ERA, .198 opponents’ batting average — but know that neither Francisco Liriano or A.J. Burnett is the type to take a back seat. I’ve discussed that at length with all three and, even in Burnett’s case at age 38, there’s a competitive fire that pushes each, and the rotation itself is part of that.
“We’re all that way,” Cole told me before this current trip. “And I’m pretty sure that won’t change no matter which one of us happens to step up. The other will want to be the guy, too.”
No doubt who’s the guy right now, either, but don’t let it get lost that Liriano’s ERA is 2.22 and Burnett’s is 1.80. And even with Liriano bringing up the rear in that category — though not by much — his opponents’ batting average is .133, which is just ridiculous.
• Pedro Alvarez already has four errors, as many as the top 16 fielding first baseman in Major League Baseball combined. So let that partly explain why Clint Hurdle clearly doesn’t trust him in late innings. But let me also add that the coaching staff is leery of Alvarez’s potential impact on the opponents’ running game. That’s not to lay all these steals on him. Francisco Cervelli, Chris Stewart and the pitchers can all do better. But pitches need to feel comfortable firing over to first as often as they want, and that facet hasn’t been there.
• Every baseball clubhouse benefits from that one guy who bridges the gap between the Latin American players and the rest. Cervelli is that man. Liriano is still head of that class, but the outgoing, gregarious Cervelli makes sure everyone stays engaged.
• The Pirates are in St. Louis, where they open their first series with the Cardinals, but the buzz about this and every meeting with this opponent began way back in the earliest days of Bradenton. No matter the subject raised related to the 2015 season, somehow, some way, the Cardinals would be invoked.
That hasn’t changed.
“It’s not like St. Louis is the only other team in the division,” Neil Walker was telling me before the trip. “But they’ve set the standard. They’ve been the bar. We know that they’ll keep being that until they’re knocked off that pedestal.”
Other players speak on that topic in much, much stronger terminology, not the kind anyone would share on a wholesome site such as this. But they’re beyond sick and tired of the St. Louis measuring stick. And on that count alone, this weekend could be neat.
• The Penguins’ approach to spending this summer, if I read correctly into my talk with Jim Rutherford earlier this week, will be simple: Save money on defense, save it in goal, save it at every role-playing forward spot … and invest whatever is needed in a trade for a scoring winger.
And yes, that’s trade, not free agency. Because this coming crop on the open market offers precious little in that category, something Rutherford acknowledges, and those few that are there will be terribly overpaid. Thus, he’s much better off working out a deal, even if that means a deal where the arriving player is higher-paid than whatever goes out.
On defense, the Penguins will save by losing Paul Martin, Christian Ehrhoff and their $9 million in cap space, as well as through giving real chances to younger guys. In goal, Thomas Greiss could be lost while providing a savings while allowing Matt Murray, maybe the AHL’s best this season, a shot to back up Marc-Andre Fleury. Fringe forwards can be lost with cheaper replacements, too. Buyouts also are still very much in play, as related to Rob Scuderi and/or Chris Kunitz.
The goal is to provide as much latitude as possible to shore up the top-six. That’s it.
• Rutherford offered a lot of niceties about both Scuderi and Kunitz this week, but don’t misinterpret that as a sign that buyouts have been ruled out. Any GM has nothing to gain from devaluing his own commodities while even an infinitesimal chance at a trade remains.
• Taylor Chorney turned 28 this week, so he’s “not exactly young,” as Rutherford reminded, nor could he be part of any youth movement the Penguins are planning. But don’t underestimate in the slightest how much Chorney impressed management both in his regular-season cameos and especially in the playoffs.
Enough to have earned a roster spot next fall?
“Chorney’s got a very, very good chance,” the GM replied to my question on that topic. “You look at how fast he was, how smart he was with the puck … our coaches just loved him.”
• Evgeni Malkin already is getting toasted for accepting Russia’s invitation to play in the World Championships, especially coming off an ankle injury and season-ending slump. But take it from someone who covered Malkin in Sochi and saw first-hand the immense pressure applied on Russian athletes, all the way to the top — Vladimir Putin was a regular at the Bolshoy Ice Dome in those Olympics — and know that there are different ways to view such situations.
That’s not necessarily to suggest anything malicious. Mercifully, that era of Russian sport is almost entirely in the past. But it is to suggest that nationalism and pride can combine with guilt over how badly Russia performed in Sochi for quite a combination. Malkin was outright humiliated with how he played there, to a degree I’ve never seen before or since.
Don’t think for a second that wasn’t used as a lure.
• Good dude: Patric Hornqvist.
You know about the player. Or at least you thought you knew about the player until Rutherford stunned us all by revealing this week that, in these playoffs just passed, Hornqvist played — no, battled through crosschecks, cheap shots and worse — with a broken rib. That’s just … wow. Every single shift he took with that injury should be spliced into an inspirational video for every forward at every level of the organization.
What you don’t know is that, after the Penguins were eliminated in Game 5 at the Garden, Hornqvist stood in the locker room for a crazy amount of time answering question after question as if somehow he, of all people, had been accountable for this series loss..
And once he was done with a group of reporters, he walked across the room, where I’d just finished with Brandon Sutter, and asked: “Do you need me for anything?”
I thanked him for the courtesy, asked him one quick question about Marc-Andre Fleury’s performance and let him go to complete similar rounds with other locals on the scene.
He then went directly to the athletic trainer’s room. Now we know why.
• All Steelers content obviously will be with the draft column, going up shortly.
Obviously.
May 1, 2015
Friday Insider: How serious is Cutch’s knee issue?
71by Dejan Kovacevic • Friday Insider • Tags: Penguins, Pirates
Andrew McCutchen looks to the field from the visitors’ dugout Sunday in Phoenix. — GETTY
BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC
Roundup of a lot of randomness from a lot of time around our teams …
• It doesn’t take much to see that Andrew McCutchen isn’t himself these days. No more than a casual glance at his statistics, really: He’s batting .194 through the Pirates’ first month, with two home runs, five extra-base hits and zero steals.
It also doesn’t take much to see — or hear — that he isn’t healthy. On April 11, for the first time after a spring in which he was rested with what the team was vaguely describing as “lower-body soreness,” he came clean with reporters that his left knee was causing him “acute” pain and accounted for at least part, if not all, of that soreness. He further rated his health at “80 percent.”
I received a tip two days ago that McCutchen’s knee has a serious issue, this from a source outside the Pirates, and it was accompanied by a highly specific diagnosis. I won’t share that diagnosis because it was flatly rejected by a team source I trust implicitly. But when I asked that same team source if McCutchen’s condition could be debilitating in the long term, the source replied, “Shouldn’t be.”
Note the caution therein.
(I should note, too, that the latter source was the only one who correctly forecast that Charlie Morton would not be ready to start the season coming off hip surgery.)
No diagnosis is ever completely clear-cut, but knees are about as simple as it gets in sports medicine: Injuries are identified, then treated, usually with simple procedures and short recovery periods, and the career continues unabated. So it set off alarm bells with me right away that McCutchen’s only treatment back in spring training was rest, and that’s all it’s been since. And once he revealed the condition is causing him “acute” pain, that pretty much ruled out ligament issues.
I don’t know where this is headed, but it sounds ominous at the moment. Almost as much as the highly unusual — in baseball, anyway — secrecy around the matter.
• One of my favorite dynamics within the Pirates’ terrific clubhouse is the one among the starting pitchers: Gerrit Cole is off to a sensational start — 4-0, 1.76 ERA, .198 opponents’ batting average — but know that neither Francisco Liriano or A.J. Burnett is the type to take a back seat. I’ve discussed that at length with all three and, even in Burnett’s case at age 38, there’s a competitive fire that pushes each, and the rotation itself is part of that.
“We’re all that way,” Cole told me before this current trip. “And I’m pretty sure that won’t change no matter which one of us happens to step up. The other will want to be the guy, too.”
No doubt who’s the guy right now, either, but don’t let it get lost that Liriano’s ERA is 2.22 and Burnett’s is 1.80. And even with Liriano bringing up the rear in that category — though not by much — his opponents’ batting average is .133, which is just ridiculous.
• Pedro Alvarez already has four errors, as many as the top 16 fielding first baseman in Major League Baseball combined. So let that partly explain why Clint Hurdle clearly doesn’t trust him in late innings. But let me also add that the coaching staff is leery of Alvarez’s potential impact on the opponents’ running game. That’s not to lay all these steals on him. Francisco Cervelli, Chris Stewart and the pitchers can all do better. But pitches need to feel comfortable firing over to first as often as they want, and that facet hasn’t been there.
• Every baseball clubhouse benefits from that one guy who bridges the gap between the Latin American players and the rest. Cervelli is that man. Liriano is still head of that class, but the outgoing, gregarious Cervelli makes sure everyone stays engaged.
• The Pirates are in St. Louis, where they open their first series with the Cardinals, but the buzz about this and every meeting with this opponent began way back in the earliest days of Bradenton. No matter the subject raised related to the 2015 season, somehow, some way, the Cardinals would be invoked.
That hasn’t changed.
“It’s not like St. Louis is the only other team in the division,” Neil Walker was telling me before the trip. “But they’ve set the standard. They’ve been the bar. We know that they’ll keep being that until they’re knocked off that pedestal.”
Other players speak on that topic in much, much stronger terminology, not the kind anyone would share on a wholesome site such as this. But they’re beyond sick and tired of the St. Louis measuring stick. And on that count alone, this weekend could be neat.
• The Penguins’ approach to spending this summer, if I read correctly into my talk with Jim Rutherford earlier this week, will be simple: Save money on defense, save it in goal, save it at every role-playing forward spot … and invest whatever is needed in a trade for a scoring winger.
And yes, that’s trade, not free agency. Because this coming crop on the open market offers precious little in that category, something Rutherford acknowledges, and those few that are there will be terribly overpaid. Thus, he’s much better off working out a deal, even if that means a deal where the arriving player is higher-paid than whatever goes out.
On defense, the Penguins will save by losing Paul Martin, Christian Ehrhoff and their $9 million in cap space, as well as through giving real chances to younger guys. In goal, Thomas Greiss could be lost while providing a savings while allowing Matt Murray, maybe the AHL’s best this season, a shot to back up Marc-Andre Fleury. Fringe forwards can be lost with cheaper replacements, too. Buyouts also are still very much in play, as related to Rob Scuderi and/or Chris Kunitz.
The goal is to provide as much latitude as possible to shore up the top-six. That’s it.
• Rutherford offered a lot of niceties about both Scuderi and Kunitz this week, but don’t misinterpret that as a sign that buyouts have been ruled out. Any GM has nothing to gain from devaluing his own commodities while even an infinitesimal chance at a trade remains.
• Taylor Chorney turned 28 this week, so he’s “not exactly young,” as Rutherford reminded, nor could he be part of any youth movement the Penguins are planning. But don’t underestimate in the slightest how much Chorney impressed management both in his regular-season cameos and especially in the playoffs.
Enough to have earned a roster spot next fall?
“Chorney’s got a very, very good chance,” the GM replied to my question on that topic. “You look at how fast he was, how smart he was with the puck … our coaches just loved him.”
• Evgeni Malkin already is getting toasted for accepting Russia’s invitation to play in the World Championships, especially coming off an ankle injury and season-ending slump. But take it from someone who covered Malkin in Sochi and saw first-hand the immense pressure applied on Russian athletes, all the way to the top — Vladimir Putin was a regular at the Bolshoy Ice Dome in those Olympics — and know that there are different ways to view such situations.
That’s not necessarily to suggest anything malicious. Mercifully, that era of Russian sport is almost entirely in the past. But it is to suggest that nationalism and pride can combine with guilt over how badly Russia performed in Sochi for quite a combination. Malkin was outright humiliated with how he played there, to a degree I’ve never seen before or since.
Don’t think for a second that wasn’t used as a lure.
• Good dude: Patric Hornqvist.
You know about the player. Or at least you thought you knew about the player until Rutherford stunned us all by revealing this week that, in these playoffs just passed, Hornqvist played — no, battled through crosschecks, cheap shots and worse — with a broken rib. That’s just … wow. Every single shift he took with that injury should be spliced into an inspirational video for every forward at every level of the organization.
What you don’t know is that, after the Penguins were eliminated in Game 5 at the Garden, Hornqvist stood in the locker room for a crazy amount of time answering question after question as if somehow he, of all people, had been accountable for this series loss..
And once he was done with a group of reporters, he walked across the room, where I’d just finished with Brandon Sutter, and asked: “Do you need me for anything?”
I thanked him for the courtesy, asked him one quick question about Marc-Andre Fleury’s performance and let him go to complete similar rounds with other locals on the scene.
He then went directly to the athletic trainer’s room. Now we know why.
• All Steelers content obviously will be with the draft column, going up shortly.
Obviously.
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