The Washington Post - 02.03.2020

KLMNO

SPORTS

MONDAy, MARCH 2 , 2020. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/SPORTS M2 D

flyers at Capitals

Wednesday, 7 p.m., nBcsn

Wizards at Kings

tomorrow, 10 p.m., nBcsW

georgetown at Creighton

Wednesday, 8 p.m., MAsn2

BY SAM FORTIER

WEST PALM BEACH, FLA. — The two

pitchers weren’t household names. They

weren’t m ajor leaguers. They w eren’t e ven

early-round draft picks when the Wash-

ington nationals selected them in 2016.

Ye t for a few days at t he beginning of the

offseason, in the afterglow of the fran-

chise’s first World series, a subsection of

the team’s f an base focused on two names:

Ben Braymer and sterling sharp.

The attention picked up in late novem-

ber when the nationals added Braymer, a

left-handed starter, to their 40-man ros-

ter. They did it to protect him from the

Rule 5 draft, a process through which

teams can select players from other orga-

nizations’ minor league systems. Fans

grumbled when they did not protect

sharp, a popular right-handed starter

known for his outgoing personality on

social media.

Three weeks later, the Miami Marlins

picked sharp third overall. The event few

fans ever seem to care about became a

relative thing. The frustration arrived in

dozens of tweets.

“This is a shame.”

“Big mistake.”

“I’d love to hear the [front office’s] logic

on this.”

now sharp and Braymer are forever

linked. They aren’t in reality — the 40-

man roster move was not a one-or-the-

other decision — but public perception

has tied them together that way. It was a

surprising twist for two players who were

first grouped together four years ago,

when they attended the same pre-draft

workout at the nationals Youth Baseball

see nAtIonAls on d4

Prospects separated — and l inked — by move

said. “It’s a real thing.”

“Weren’t you here last year?” Adam

eaton asked. “It’s the whole reason we

won.”

That’s not to say Kendrick is the whole

reason the nationals are defending

champions — though his 10th-inning

grand slam dispatched the Los Angeles

Dodgers in the division series and his

seventh-inning opposite-field shot put

the nationals ahead in Game 7 of the

World series. There’s no exaggerating:

Those two swings changed both the

trajectory of a franchise and the feel for a

sport in the nation’s capital.

“Those at-bats, I’ll always remember

them,” Kendrick said. “Two of the biggest

moments of my career — period.”

Tr y getting an argument in the

District. You won’t.

But here’s the thing: Ta ke those swings

away. Turn them into strikeouts. And the

nationals would still believe Kendrick’s

presence matters.

“Howie embodies so much of what

made our team successful last year,”

closer sean Doolittle said.

Part of what makes baseball fun is that

so much of it can be quantified. Ta ke the

numbers, and spend hours splicing and

dicing them. The quantifiables the

see sVrlugA on d4

Kendrick leads, Nats follow

Teammates say veteran’s leadership is a key reason Washington is the defending champion

WEST PALM BEACH, FLA.

— For just a few minutes,

as we try to project how

the Washington nationals

assembled here in the cool

of March will perform

over the swelter of a

summer, put down your

calculators and log off

your stat sites. Howie Kendrick is

walking into the clubhouse. And that

mere act and fact — Howie Kendrick

being present — means something for the

nationals.

Unless I’m reaching.

“You’re not reaching,” Max scherzer

Barry

Svrluga

KAtHerIne Frey/tHe WAsHIngton Post

timothy Ighoefe, center, scored the tying basket with 17 seconds

left, but host georgetown still suffered its fourth straight defeat.

BY AVA WALLACE

Georgetown had a few chances
sunday to turn the tide in its
66 -63 loss to Xavier and salvage
what minuscule shot it still had of
making the nCAA tournament.
But none was as good as the one
that came with 17 seconds to play.
Timothy Ighoefe’s game-tying
putback of an off-balance jumper
by Jagan Mosely encapsulated ev-
erything admirable about the

Hoyas as they have navigated the

home stretch of this season with-

out their two best players. Mosely,

who didn’t come off the floor

sunday at Capital one Arena,

found an inch of space to get off a

shot. Ighoefe, the Hoyas’ third-

string center who had made his

share of freshman mistakes, was

finally in the right place at the

right time. He grabbed his fifth

offensive rebound and bounced

right back up to tie the score at 6 3.

What happened next repre-

sented everything that has been

frustrating about the woefully un-

dermanned Hoyas lately as they

have struggled on defense and

with taking advantage of key

m oments.

Mosely stuck with a hard-driv-

ing naji Marshall past half court

but gave him just an arm’s worth

of space at the top of the key, and

the Xavier forward pulled up and

hit a three-pointer with 4.5 sec-

onds to play. The Musketeers

elected not to foul on George-

town’s next possession out of a

timeout, but graduate transfer

guard Te rrell Allen’s desperation

three-pointer clanked off the

see georgetown on d5

Shorthanded Hoyas’ slide continues

XAvIer 66,

GeOrGetOwn 63

College bAsKetbAll

the Maryland women win

their 14th straight game

and earn the top seed in

the Big ten tournament. D4

golf

sungjae Im, 21, secures

his first PgA tour victory

with a final-round 66

at the Honda classic. D5

Pro footbAll

the Dc Defenders suffer

their second loss in a row,

this one a 25-0 setback

against tampa Bay. D6

BY CANDACE BUCKNER

SAN FRANCISCO — over this

prolific stretch spanning his past

18 games, Bradley Beal hasn’t

often coasted through the fourth

quarter. He has been busy scor-

ing to keep the Washington Wiz-

ards competitive. In his quest to

generate wins by making bucket

after bucket, Beal has clocked in

for long and sometimes frustrat-

ing nights.

Beal logged minutes in the

fourth quarter again sunday

night, but it felt different. The

Wizards blew out the Golden

st ate Warriors, 124-110, and

made his offensive effort worth-

while.

Beal scored a game-high

34 points, a franchise-record

18th consecutive game in which

he has finished with at least 25.

He m oved a head o f Walt Bellamy,

who had owned the previous

mark for 58 years. As Beal played

the r ole of scorer-in-chief and led

the Wizards’ stunning display of

outside shooting, Washington

see wIzArds on d3

Beal’s latest

scoring spree

is good for

a team record

wIZArDS 124,

wArrIOrS 110

BY SAMANTHA PELL

ST. PAUL, MINN. — It began as a

physical, chippy, back-and-forth

affair sunday night at X cel energy

Center. With the Minnesota Wild

desperately clawing for a playoff

spot and the Washington Capitals

still trying to piece their game

back together after a slump, the

teams were charged from the drop

of the puck.

An electric first period yielded

five goals, plenty more scoring

opportunities and a fight, and the

intensity only increased from

there. Ultimately, the Capitals

came out with a 4-3 victory for

their third win in four games, and

they exited with chants of “ovi!”

ringing in their ears from t he scat-

tered splashes of red in the crowd.

With two first-period goals on

his way to a three-point night,

Capitals captain Alex ovechkin

led the way. It was his seventh

game with at least three points

this season, and he recorded his

first assist since Jan. 29. He has

45 goals in 64 games after notch-

ing his 12th multigoal game of the

season. And in his past five games

at Minnesota, he has 15 points

see CApItAls on d3

Ovechkin

leads way

in chippy

road win

CApItALS 4,

wILD 3

Star scores twice in first,

and Washington holds on

JoHn McDonnell/tHe WAsHIngton Post

nationals slugger Howie Kendrick hit .344 with 17 home runs in the regular season last year and was named the MVp of the nl Championship series.

“He’s a tough SOB between the lines. He’s got some street smarts in him. But he’s got this air of

dignity and elegance to him that’s hard to put your finger on — but it matters. You can’t fake it.”

Mike rizzo, nationals general manager, on Howie Kendrick’s influence in the clubhouse