Source: Cutch injury NOT oblique

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DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

Andrew McCutchen’s injury is NOT an oblique, a source tells DKonPittsburghSports.com, contrary to multiple published reports. He is hurt, but no timetable has been set for his recovery.

I’ll be awaiting the Pirates’ official word on this, which could come today. But I thought that important distinction was very much worth reporting.

Here is McCutchen’s official page on MLB.com for reference.

Column: Pitt needs more than NFL legends

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DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

Somewhere between seeing the new Sports Illustrated with LeSean McCoy of the Eagles on the regional cover, or hearing on NFL Network that the Rams’ defensive coaches are describing Aaron Donald as a specimen unlike any they’ve witnessed in two decades, or reading that Tom Savage might become the Texans’ backup QB, or catching up on the latest regarding Larry Fitzgerald, Darrelle Revis, Jabaal Sheard, Devin Street and others … it’s easily reinforced that there’s this immense incongruity between the caliber of player the Pitt football program produces and the caliber of team.

And it borders, in all candor, on the bizarre.

I mean, explain, please, how a program can land the occasional world-class player — and that category comfortably fits McCoy, Fitzgerald, Revis and now Donald — but can barely survive .500 on an annual basis because of its perpetually inferior supporting casts?

How does that happen?

Wait, better question: Will it happen yet again with Tyler Boyd?

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Column: What will Wheaton pull from hat?

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DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

LATROBE, Pa. — Maybe Markus Wheaton had lost a bet. Or maybe he just wanted to stay dry from the steady rain that soaked Saint Vincent College all Sunday long. Or maybe it was pure symbolism, a statement that he was ready to compete.

Whatever the case, the kid would not take off his helmet.

Chin-strap snapped up and all.

Why?

“Eh, I don’t know. It’s OK. I’m just leaving it on,” Wheaton was telling me nearly an hour after practice and, yes, the helmet stayed on through the whole interview.

It was all quite the sight, and not just Wheaton in isolation. This was one of those Mike Tomlin practices that punished as much as it reinforced. It was physical. It was a mental test, one drill added right after the previous had seemed like the last. It went 33 minutes longer than the two hours allotted and, when the final horn finally sounded, players were dragging, limping off the field. Most didn’t detour a single step in climbing the big hill up to the cafeteria to devour their dinners.

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Column: Nothing at all? Seriously?

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DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

Neal Huntington thanked his scouts.

Not sure that’s one I’d heard before, but there it was: The Pirates’ GM, in the immediate aftermath of a Major League Baseball trading deadline that was about as productive as a waiver-wire plucking of some Double-A nobody — oh, wait, that’s actually all that went down — went out of his way to tell us reporters that his lieutenants had “worked tirelessly” in traveling “back and forth” across the country to study big-league players and write up reports, all aimed at the deadline.

And then … pfffffffffffffffffft.

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Source: Pirates NOT in on Price trade

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DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

So the Pirates and everyone besides the A’s lost out on Jon Lester. That gets the day off to a rollicking start, at least for Billy Beane, who for a day wins the hearts and minds not only of the statheads but also the headline-writers. He’ll still have zero wins in the category that counts.

Just saying. Not judging the trade itself.

I’ll follow the activity all day leading up to the actual 4 p.m. deadline. Feel free to join the fun in the comments below.

The fountain of information on a day like this is MLB Trade Rumors, but I’ll be looking to update links under the names of those prominent players dealt to the hometown sources. Oakland, for example, is covered wonderfully by San Francisco Chronicle beat writer (and fellow Crowded House fan!) Susan Slusser, so that’s the link up there under Lester.

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Column: Pirates’ smarter target is behind plate

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DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

If the Pirates really want to make an immense impact on their franchise and its fan base at Major League Baseball’s perpetually overhyped trade deadline, if they really want to do right by the present and future, if they really want to put the collective in the best possible position to end what Kent Tekulve rightly refers to as “the real streak around here” at 35 years, they’d do nothing more than tap their catcher’s shoulder today in Phoenix and make him an unimaginably wealthy man.

Don’t kid yourself: Russell Martin is the window.

Martin, more than anyone, is the source of all this angst over whether or not Neal Huntington will wind up acquiring Jon Lester, David Price, Ian Kennedy or any other big-name pitcher on the block today.

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Exclusive interview: Paul Chryst

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DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

Paul Chryst will enter his third year as head coach of Pitt football when his players open training camp Monday on the South Side. Chryst, 48, has overseen seasons of 6-7 and 7-6, qualifying for bowl appearances in each.

Expectations are low for 2014, at least in some circles, with the ACC’s preseason media poll placing Pitt sixth in the seven-team Coastal Division, and that no doubt has plenty to do with the graduation loss of all-universe nose tackle Aaron Donald, a first-round draft pick of the Rams, and quarterback Tom Savage (drafted by Texans) and wide receiver Devin Street (Cowboys).

On the sunnier side, wide receiver Tyler Boyd was named to the Biletnikoff Award watch list, and running back James Conner was named a Doak Walker Award preseason candidate. Those two, plus mobile QB Chad Voytik, offer hope for an offense that could be both tough and dynamic.

On Tuesday afternoon, I interviewed Chryst on an array of topics:

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Tuesday 12 Qs: Pedro, Jarvis, Scuds, more

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DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

Welcome to Tuesday Twenty Qs, a better, fairer format, I think, for the weekly chat. We’ll do it every week at this time, and this time was chosen so that, in football season, it can immediately follow Mike Tomlin’s weekly press conference.

The format is simple: Use the comments below to submit an entry, no more than one per person. Submit them anytime you want. I’ll pick from those to get the thing rolling. I’ll then keep monitoring new entries, even as the session is ongoing, to cover follow-ups or updates.

Again, all I ask is that it’s one entry per person. Most of the complaints I heard in the old format were about the same people getting chosen too often.

As always, all topics are on the table. Really, anything at all.

UPDATE 12:56 p.m.: OK, I guess we’re about to get going … except that I said 20 questions, not the 72 I’m seeing down there right now! Come on!

Milo Hamilton: What have these past three weeks or so been like for you ?

DK: Kind of like this new format, Milo: Bitten off more than I can chew!

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Column: Why Pittsburgh will love Ryan Shazier

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DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

LATROBE, Pa. — “I wasn’t surprised at all,” Ryan Shazier insisted to reporters Monday when asked about the almost barbaric punishment being doled out in the Steelers’ annual backs-on-backers drill. “We’re a hard-nosed team. We’re in Pittsburgh, Ohio.”

He caught himself immediately and laughed a bit.

“Pittsburgh, P-A. I’m sorry about that. Went to Ohio State. We’re from Pittsburgh, P-A. We play dirty.”

Caught himself again.

“Not dirty, but hard-nosed.”

Nah, that last one was fine, actually. And the other one wasn’t all bad, either. The way Shazier competed Monday — in backs-and-backers and all that followed on the first day in full pads — I’m guessing no one would care which Pittsburgh he’s from, so long as it’s the only one in the world ending with an H.

I’ll say it yet again, Nation: You will love this kid.

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Column: Let’s see Kapanen’s best shot

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Photo-illustration — ALEX MESSMER

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

“We’ve been waiting for someone like him to arrive for a while.”

The scene was Sochi’s Bolshoy Ice Dome, site of the recent Olympics, and the speaker was Sami Salo, the well-traveled NHL veteran defenseman. Team Finland had just skated through its first training session, and Salo had just been paired with Olli Maatta, a partner 20 years his younger.

One set of drills was all it took. Salo felt so strongly about the kid that the above quote was his response to my fairly innocuous question about his first impression of the Penguins’ prized rookie.

“He’s that good,” Salo would say.

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