The Washington Post - USA (2020-07-27)

KLMNO

SPORTS

monday, july 27 , 2020. washingtonpost.com/sports sU D

trusted relievers couldn’t

hold a late advantage. Corb-

in’s outing, which included

one earned run and eight

strikeouts in 61 / 3 innings, was

erased in a flash.

After weathering this issue

throughout last season, the

nationals made three moves

to build a better bullpen. They

picked up Doolittle’s $ 6.5 mil-

lion club option. They signed

the 36 -year-old Harris for

three years and $24 million.

And they brought back Daniel

Hudson on a two-year,

$11 million deal. They all

rushed to prepare in the past

few weeks and were never

going to perform without hic-

cups.

But two came back-to-

back, and they came right

away, and here’s the simple

BY EMILY GIAMBALVO

The opening Ceremonies — an
event that ushers in another
olympic Games and, for many,
commemorates their greatest
athletic accomplishment — begin
with hours of waiting. Athletes
wait for the buses that take them
from the village to the venue.
They wait to enter the stadium.
They wait to march. The process
devours an entire evening, but it’s
memorable and communal.
During that wait at the 2016
olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Kawi-
ka shoji, an indoor volleyball
player, had time to meet his fellow
olympians, to understand their
sports and hear about their jour-
neys. That reminded him how
many olympians’ stories had a
common thread: stanford Uni-
versity.
Twenty-nine U.s. athletes in
Rio — including shoji, swimmer
Katie Ledecky and four members

of the gold medal-winning wom-

en’s w ater polo team — had ties to

stanford. Those athletes com-

bined to win 27 medals for the

United states, more than any oth-

er university’s contingent. Four of

those were won by athletes from

sports among the 11 programs the

school decided to cut this month.

With the novel coronavirus

pandemic threatening the reve-

nue streams that flow into athlet-

ic departments — broadcast

rights, ticket s ales, donations, stu-

dent fees and payouts from guar-

antee games — dozens of schools

have axed programs. stanford,

long known for its success in

nonrevenue sports, became the

first school in the Power Five

conferences to do so. Leaders in

these sports worry that if other

schools follow suit, the damage in

this country may be irrevocable.

“If you look at a lot of the

athletes going to the olympics,

sEE olYMpICS on D3

As colleges cut sports,

Olympic model withers BY SAMANTHA PELL

As the Washington Capitals

embark on their trip north, sights

set on hoisting another stanley

Cup, their blueprint to success in

the postseason will rely heavily on

a steady blue line.

After the news saturday that

backup goaltender Ilya samsonov

suffered an injury before the nHL

restart and would not travel with

the team to To ronto, the depth of

the defense will be critical in the

summer tournament.

The Capitals will bring 10 de-

fensemen to To ronto: John Carl-

son, Michal Kempny, Brenden

Dillon, Dmitry orlov, Jonas

siegenthaler, nick Jensen, Radko

Gudas, Martin Fehervary, Ty ler

Lewington and Alex Alexeyev.

Barring any injuries or novel cor-

onavirus-related setbacks, the

team is expected to roll with the

Carlson and Kempny on the top

pairing, Dillon and orlov on the

second and siegenthaler and

Jensen on the third. Gudas is

expected to be the first defense-

man off the bench to fill any holes.

However, even with a norris

Trophy finalist in Carlson, the

Capitals’ blue line was inconsis-

tent for weeks before the season

was paused because of the

sEE CApITAlS on D2

Capitals defense aims to be steady in NHL restart

ToNi L. sANDys/THe WAsHiNgToN PosT

Capitals d efenseman Alex Alexeyev battles winger Carl hagelin during a scrimmage F riday.

JoHN MCDoNNeLL/THe WAsHiNgToN PosT

The Yankees’ gleyber Torres belts the game-winning RBI off Sean Doolittle in the eighth inning as the nationals drop the first series of the abbreviated season.

BY JESSE DOUGHERTY

This is how the first test for

the Washington nationals’

new-look bullpen went: Will

Harris gave up the lead in the

seventh, sean D oolittle let the

new York Yankees get ahead

in the eighth, and the nation-

als soon lost, 3-2, to drop their

first series of the season.

nationals Park wasn’t

teeming with energy sunday

afternoon. The empty ball-

park made sure of that. But

the nationals were riding a

great start from Patrick Corb-

in and ahead by two runs,

then fell into a far-too-famil-

iar outcome. Their most-

math of a 60-game season:

Early is also late.

“I mean, look, the reality is

that’s the fourth time I’ve

faced hitters,” Doolittle said,

adding he was “super frus-

trated” with the results.

“What this season is going to

come down to is which team,

with pitchers, can make the

adjustments the quickest and

get into midseason form es-

sentially.”

When Corbin toed the rub-

ber around 1:05 p.m., this

experiment was still only four

days old. The seats behind

home plate were empty aside

from a handful of people,

sEE nATIonAlS on D3

Nats are closed out

blue Jays at Nationals Today, 6:05 p.m., MAsN

YaNkees 3, NatioNals 2

Corbin is sharp in start, but rebuilt bullpen reels

Pro baSketball

The NBA in the Florida

bubble is different — that is

until the game starts. D2

Soccer

Houston wins the Challenge

Cup as the NWsL finishes

without a positive test. D5

BY SAM FORTIER

During quarantine, the Wash-
ington Football Te am’s players
have found themselves, like most
other people, with more free
time than usual. The disruption
of everyday life and the general
confinement to home have
forced them to find distractions.
They’re just like the more than
250 people who told The Wash-
ington Post in April they were
learning musical instruments,
culinary techniques or other cre-
ative avocations.
You might have heard that
during centuries-ago plagues,
shakespeare wrote “King Lear”
and Isaac newton discovered
gravity. Washington’s players
tackled smaller, simpler quaran-
tine activities.
Guard Wes Martin became a
carpenter, defensive tackle Tim
settle developed a line of luxury
street apparel, and offensive
lineman Paul Adams delved back
into an old video game.

wes Martin, carpenter

It started when Martin’s wife,
Bailey, liked a birdhouse on Pin-
terest. Martin decided to build
the two-level, three-bedroom
McMansion with friend and fel-
low lineman Chase Roullier, who
knew how to woodwork. Then, as
quarantine began, Martin found
himself spending more a nd more
time with saws, sandpaper and
schematics.
Projects popped up around
the house. Martin built deck
chairs, a dog-bowl stand and
flower boxes. He fashioned a
nightstand and a concrete-
topped, outdoor end table. He
repurposed tobacco beams to
build another concrete tabletop.
The 24-year-old spent m ost of his
life devoted to football and the
family dog-rescue back in ohio
— they recently purchased a new
facility for their dozen or so pups
— but, in quarantine, this be-
came an invaluable outlet.
“People need to stick to a
routine so they don’t go crazy,”
Martin said, “and this definitely
turned into something that, out-
side of my workouts, I could
focus on and divert my attention
to.”
The project he’s most proud of
is an ambrosia-maple wood table
with “a cool texture” created by
burrowing ambrosia beetles.
Martin got a hand planer to
smooth out t he slab’s m arks f rom
the sawmill and spent hours
refining the warped wood. He
sEE wAShIngTon on D2

Quarantine

gives rise

to hobbies

for players

Unusual NFL offseason

led to projects such as

carpentry and fashion