May 7, 2016 3 min read

It’s a good thing Andrew McCutchen doesn’t have a C on the front of his Pirates jersey.

If the reaction to Sidney Crosby’s slow start this season is any indication, there would be calls from fans and even some in the media to have it ripped off.

McCutchen is not off to a good start this season.

Going into Saturday’s game in St. Louis, he was batting around .230 with six home runs and 12 RBI. He’s really struggling against right-handed pitching – only hitting .215. He’s hitting .300 against lefties.

I defended Crosby in October, November and December and after he came out of his slump, I predicted he would be the NHL’s leading scorer from January through the end of the season.

He was.

Last April, when McCutchen was batting .194, I suggested that people should be patient and I said that his April batting average was very bad news for opposing pitchers because he was going to raise his average at least 70 points and that would require some serious hitting the rest of the way.

McCutchen hit .330 in May, .337 in June, .287 in July and .348 in August. He might be been the National League’s best hitter from May through August.

You have to believe McCutchen is going to heat up the same way this summer.

His average from May through August the last three years is .326.

His batting average for the last three Augusts is .357.

So, it might be a little early to be trashing the Pirates’ best player.

Of course, there is one big difference between production in baseball and hockey. Crosby is judged by his point totals and his were way down for the first three months. But Crosby’s point totals depend on what happens on the other end of his passes.

McCutchen’s production, or the lack of it, is all on him.

If you want to worry about him, consider that since he hit .348 last August, McCutchen is a .230 hitter.

• Wearing a Crosby jersey and yelling through the Consol Energy Arena glass at the Washington Capitals’ bench during Game 4 was not a good look for Gerrit Cole.

• Canadian hockey icon Don Cherry said last week that Crosby is taking way too much abuse. He showed video of Crosby being slashed and hacked all over the ice with no penalties being called and asked viewers to imagine that happening to Wayne Gretzky.

It never happened to Gretzky because whoever did the hacking and/or slashing would have to go toe-to-toe with a cement head. That was before the NHL added the instigator rule to discourage players from making slashers and hackers pay by inviting them to a gloveless dance.

Cherry called it the worst rule in the history of sports.

I’d vote for the NFL moving kickoffs up to create more touchbacks, but I get his point.

When Washington’s Alex Ovechkin gave Crosby a two-handed slash to his wrist in Game 4, he should have been visited by someone with an invitation to fight.

Cherry’s theory, of course, is that the threat of being visited by aan enforcer would have prevented Ovechkin from delivering the two-hander.

Of course, the slash was somehow not seen by either referee.

• Capitals’ coach Barry Trotz announced a major shakeup of his lines on Friday and said, “What do we have to lose?”

How about the series?

• I will never understand investing two and a half hours at an NHL playoff game and leaving before overtime.

John Steigerwald writes a Sunday sports column for the Observer-Reporter.