SUNDAY, AUGUST 2 , 2020. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ SU D5
day.
Yet it all rushes back once he
returns to his office. Across the
past year, he has occasionally
caved to emotion in the moments
after a win. There was last August
in Chicago, when he choked up
talking about how far the Nation-
als had come after a rough start.
There was last September in
Washington, when the Nationals
finally clinched a playoff spot.
And there was last October, once
they reserved a spot in the World
Series, when Martinez mentioned
bumpy roads, beautiful places
and how his players healed him
after a heart attack scare.
In 2019, these were the foot-
notes of a title run. In 2020, a
candid coach or athlete is viral
news. Martinez says he never
expected to be featured on “Good
Morning America” or MSNBC as
he was in the past week. But he
also never expected to manage a
season such as this one, and he is
leaning into a duty to defend his
players and speak out.
Someone has to, he figures,
and the camera was pointed at
him.
“It’s just what I’m feeling, and I
want to express it instead of
bottling it up,” Martinez said. “I
know that’s different for me, but
right now nothing is the same.”
[email protected]Tuesday. For as long as each lasts,
Martinez is able to escape reality.
Martinez forgets that he hasn’t
seen his parents in months. He
can’t fret over his family, which
stayed in Florida amid repeated
spikes in cases. And his kids can’t
fret over him, saving their texts —
“Stay inside!”... “Be careful dad”
— for the other 21 hours of theball,” Martinez said. “Now I worry
that I’ll wake up to a call that the
whole team has the virus. The
Marlins’ situation is what I am
most afraid of as a manager. I
think it’s what we’re all most
afraid of.”
Since late June, when MLB
finalized a restart plan, Martinez
has dealt with a number of virus-
related issues. Opt-outs by Ryan
Zimmerman, Joe Ross and Wel-
ington Castillo were a small be-
ginning. The Nationals had to
cancel an early workout because
of a lag in test results; then they
actively considered moving their
home site because of the District’s
strict quarantine rules; then star
outfielder Juan Soto tested posi-
tive for the coronavirus on Open-
ing Day; then, at the start of last
week, the team voted against
going to Miami for a series that
was later postponed by MLB.
That’s why Martinez was at
Nationals Park on Saturday, run-
ning a casual intrasquad scrim-
mage. Soto was back after a city-
mandated 10 days of isolation. He
doubled in one at-bat before hom-
ering in another. Martinez also
tested a five-man infield to use
with less than two outs and an
opposing runner on third base.
The games go on for now. The
Nationals’ next one is against the
New York Mets and scheduled forSince his major league debut in
1986, Martinez has avoided atten-
tion as a player, bench coach and
manager. He doesn’t like selling
himself. He has always had his
agent negotiate deals, then tell
him where to move. When his job
was on the line last May, once the
Nationals sunk to 19-31, he nei-
ther pushed blame nor accepted
it. He just kept saying the club
would figure it out. Eventually, he
was right.
Now, though, Martinez feels a
bigger responsibility, one that
goes beyond making lineups or
bullpen moves. Going 1-0 every
day, his favorite catchphrase, has
a totally new meaning. He was
asked 17 questions Monday, most
centered on the pandemic and an
outbreak of cases among Miami
Marlins players and staff. By the
time he was finished, his com-
ments were splashed across so-
cial media and bound for network
television.
When asked about the Nation-
als’ scheduled trip to Miami, he
challenged MLB by saying he
hoped it would make the right
decision. He admitted that, given
his recent heart issues, he is
scared of what could happen if he
contracted the virus. He fought
tears while saying his players
have families, that they’re hu-
man, that this is affecting them
like everyone else.
He was honest and unguarded.
Afterward, he felt relieved.
“This is weighing on me a lot,”
Martinez said, speaking slowly
and softly through the phone.
“It’s not just the players or myself.
That’s only the start of it. It’s my
coaching staff, the clubbies, the
PR staff, the beat writers, every-
one’s families. A lot of people
could be in danger if we’re not
smart and safe. And even then,
you really don’t know if that’s
enough.”
Martinez is used to not sleep-
ing well. In 2019, as the Nationals’
record cratered, he would stay up
until 2 or 3 a.m. with the latest
loss on replay. He would jot down
observations on a notepad. He
would list relievers for the next
night’s game, then need a whole
pot of coffee before it started.
His habits are similar this sum-
mer. He still re-watches games
after midnight and joked that it’s
nice to speed through the “boring
parts.” But he is kept awake by a
far different kind of stress.
“It used to just be about base-NATIONALS FROM D1Martinez feels responsibility to speak up
JOHN MCDONNELL/THE WASHINGTON POST
Nationals Manager Dave Martinez, left, said, “This is scary for us, even if our job is to play a game.”NATIONALS ON DECKvs. New York MetsTu esday7:05 MASN2
Wednesday6:05 MASN2vs. Baltimore OriolesFr iday6:05 MASN,
MASN2Saturday6:05 MASN,
MASN2Aug. 91 2:35 MASN,
M ASN2at New York MetsAug. 10 7:10 MASN
Aug. 11 7:10 MASNAug. 12 7:10 MASN
Aug. 13 1:10 MASNRadio: WJFK (106.7 FM)BY JESSE DOUGHERTYTres Barrera claims he had
never heard of Oral Turinabol
when he learned he had tested
positive for the drug Feb. 11. Sci-
entifically known as Dehydro-
chlormethyltestosterone — and
more colloquially called DHCMT
— the steroid is on MLB’s banned
substance list. Barrera faced a
possible 80-game suspension,
sending him into a tailspin in the
days before spring training.
Then, a little over a week ago,
that suspension was officially is-
sued under the joint drug agree-
ment between MLB and the play-
ers’ union. Barrera, a 25-year-old
catcher for the Washington Na-
tionals, has now sued MLB, the
commissioner’s office, the direc-
tor of an anti-doping lab and two
league-contracted labs in Utah
and Montreal. Barrera is alleging
that MLB’s test for DHCMT is
“junk science”; that the levels
found in his system do not qualify
as performance-enhancing; that
the test results can’t conclusively
determine when the substance
entered his system; and that
MLB’s arbitration process was
ultimately unfair because Daniel
Eichner, the Utah lab director
and an MLB-contracted expert,
was the only scientist who testi-
fied.
Barrera requested an emergen-
cy temporary restraining order
Monday that would have enabled
him to rejoin the Nationals with a
judge’s ruling. But that request
was denied Wednesday, accord-
ing to court documents, and there
will not be a hearing on the
matter.
Beyond the temporary re-
straining order request, Barrera
is looking to form a class of
players who have tested positive
for D HCMT by MLB. He’s seeking
an unspecified amount of mone-
tary damages, as well as intereston those damages and the money
he won’t earn from the Nationals
while suspended. Alfonso Ken-
nard, Barrera’s attorney, says the
initial ruling does not shift their
plans, adding: “It doesn’t change
what this lawsuit ultimately seeks
to accomplish for Tres and oth-
ers.”
MLB declined to comment
through a spokesman, citing the
“confidential nature of the Joint
MLB-MLBPA Drug Prevention
and Treatment Program.” At-
tempts to reach Eichner were not
successful. The MLB Players As-
sociation declined to comment
through a spokesman, citing its
inability to do so on pending
litigation. The Nationals declined
to comment as well.
“Tres Barrera is willing to sit on
a grenade so no other players
have to go through this,” Kennard
said in an interview with The
Washington Post. “He knows that
waging this sort of fight could
affect his reputation moving for-
ward. But he is not a cheater.”
The original complaint, filed
Monday in McAllen, Tex., details
Barrera’s history of workout sup-
plements. This was an attempt to
show how DHCMT could have
entered his system before he
started in professional baseball.
Players cannot be punished by
the rules of the joint drug agree-
ment (JDA) for supplements con-
sumed before their careers start.
Barrera bought over-the-counter
workout supplements while in
high school. He took team protein
powder in college.
Barrera received no substance
education in high school or col-
lege, according to the complaint.
In the first eight drug tests of his
career, between August 2016 and
July 2019, there were no traces of
the drug. Eichner’s opinion, ac-
cording to the complaint, was
partly drawn from the fact of the
drug not showing up in those
previous tests. The complaint
says he concluded to the arbitra-
tion panel that the drug “would
only be detectable for a maximum
period of 50 days after exposure.”
But the complaint states that
Eichner has acknowledged the
test for DHCMT is unable toaccurately determine how long
the drug has been in a player’s
body. On top of that, Barrera
tested positive for 10 picograms
of the banned substance, an
amount he believes would have
no effect on his performance. The
UFC, for example, does not penal-
ize fighters for anything under
100 picograms of DHCMT. In
mass units, a picogram is equal to
0.000000000001 of a gram.
Jeff Novitzky, the UFC’s head of
athlete health and performance,
recently tweeted about Barrera’s
case, saying: “There is something
screwy with this substance. We
have athletes with small amounts
of the DHCMT M3 metabolite in
their systems for 2 and 3 years...
Too many uncertainties.” An im-
age of the tweet was included in
the complaint. Eichner also testi-
fied in a past UFC hearing after an
athlete tested positive for DHC-
MT, and his conclusions were
included.
In that case, Eichner deter-
mined that 60 picograms of
D HCMT made it “extremely un-
likely that [name redacted] will
gain any advantage from the pico-
gram levels detected in his sys-
tem.” Eichner is the director of
the Sports Medicine Research
and Testing Laboratory in Utah.
He has “extensive anti-doping ex-
perience,” according to the web-
site, and is a go-to banned sub-
stance expert for MLB.
The Utah lab was contracted
this summer to lead baseball’s
coronavirus testing efforts. The
lab in Montreal, which Barrera is
also suing, processes MLB’s drug
test samples.
“DHCMT is a unique and
anomalous substance, yet the
MLB is trying to impose an
80 game suspension on a player
who may well have had an inad-
vertent exposure to DHCMT be-
fore he was subject to any MLB
drug program in breach of the
JDA and CBA,” Barrera’s original
complaint stated, summarizing
the crux of his argument. “Fur-
thermore, the low picogram lev-
els indicate that the substance
found would not have any perfor-
mance enhancing effect, which is
the purpose of the JDA to ensurethe integrity of the game.”
“This does not feel in the spirit
of why the drug program was
designed,” Kennard said. “If he
unknowingly ingested this, we
can’t really prove when and it
didn’t even help him in competi-
tion, what is the actual point
here?”
The complaint describes two
functions of the joint drug agree-
ment: The first, it says, is to
“prevent a player from gaining an
unfair advantage by using perfor-
mance enhancing drugs while
subject to the JDA.” The second, it
says, is “to provide and produce
accurate and reliable tests for
certain prohibited substances,”
and that’s where Barrera feels he
was wronged.
The arbitration decision was
rendered by Mark L. Irvings,
chair of baseball’s independent
arbitration panel. After filing an
appeal and grievance against the
league, Barrera had exhausted his
contractual options for recourse.
And that’s what led to this law-
suit.
Barrera was part of Washing-
ton’s 60-player pool for 2020 and
had a shot to make the Opening
Day roster July 23. The complaint
claims that he was about to before
Patrick Houlihan, an MLB labor
lawyer, told the Nationals that
Barrera would lose his arbitration
case. The complaint alleges
Houlihan did so before the deci-
sion was finalized, making it a
violation of confidentiality. MLB
and the Nationals both declined
to comment on the matter.
But it still had no bearing on
the ultimate outcome. Barrera
issued a statement through the
players’ union July 25. He apolo-
gized to his teammates, to his
family, to any young players who
look up to him, all while main-
taining that he has never cheated.
He contacted Novitzky on Twitter,
asking for help. Then he and his
wife, Lindsey, began a days-long
drive from Washington to Texas.
The public process of clearing his
name had begun.
“He won’t stop until that hap-
pens,” Kennard said. “Because so
much about this isn’t right.”
[email protected]Hit with an 80-game ban, Nats’ Barrera fires back
Catcher files suit alleging
MLB’s drug test is bogus
and its process isn’t fairbaseball
Six of the 30 teams — the Cardinals,
Brewers, Marlins, Philadelphia
Phillies, Washington Nationals
and Toronto Blue Jays — are side-
lined, with the latter four stem-
ming from the Marlins’ outbreak.
The Phillies, who have been on
hiatus since Monday after they
hosted the Marlins for three games
last weekend, reported no new pos-
itive tests Saturday and were al-
lowed to resume workouts at Phila-
delphia’s Citizens Bank Park. The
Phillies have seen no players test
positive since the Marlins series,
but three staff members did. How-
ever, a statement from MLB on
Saturday characterized two of
those three as false positives. As-
suming no new positives in the
meantime, the Phillies’ season is
expected to resume Monday in
New York against the Yankees.
The extended shutdowns of the
Phillies and Marlins required an-
other round of schedule-shuffling
for this coming week, with the
Marlins and Baltimore Orioles,
who were previously scheduled
for four games this past week, now
set to meet four times beginning
Tuesday in Baltimore, with the
Marlins — who have had to ac-
quire extra players and promote
some from their supplemental
roster to cover the losses of their
infected players — serving as
“home” team for two of the four.
That decision appears to be in
response to players’ reluctance to
travel to Miami, which has been hit
hard by the coronavirus. On Mon-
day, Nationals players voted over-
whelming not to travel there for a
series this weekend, but the series
was eventually postponed because
of the Marlins’ outbreak. MLB has
not said when the Marlins will play
in Miami again; their next sched-
uled game at Marlins Park is
Aug. 14 against the Atlanta Braves.
In addition to postponing the
Cardinals’ weekend series with
the Brewers, MLB shifted the start
of St. Louis’s next series, with the
Detroit Tigers, from Monday to
Tuesday. Rather than play two
games in Detroit followed by two
games in St. Louis as originally
scheduled, the teams will play all
four games in Detroit, with the
Cardinals treated as the home
team for two. To make up Mon-
day’s game, the Cardinals and Ti-
gers are scheduled to play a dou-
bleheader Wednesday.
MLB “will continue to follow a
conservative approach in address-
ing positive test results because
the health and safety of our play-
ers, employees and the public at
large is paramount,” it said in a
statement Saturday. “We are in
daily contact with the Players As-
sociation, public health officials,
and our own medical experts in
order to make decisions that will
best protect individuals from be-
ing exposed to COVID-19.”
Manfred has been mostly silent
and out of public view in recent
days — with the exception of an
interview Monday on MLB Net-
work, in which he said the Marlins’
outbreak was not a “nightmare”
scenario and expressed confidence
in baseball’s health and safety pro-
tocols — but the mood around the
major leagues has grown darker.
Manfred, according to several me-
dia reports, told union chief Tony
Clark the season could be shut
down in the coming days if the
situation does not improve.
“This is veering quickly into
‘shut all of MLB down’ territory for
me,” Zachary Binney, an epidemi-
ologist and assistant professor at
Oxford College of Emory Universi-
ty, tweeted in the wake of Satur-
day’s news regarding the Cardi-
nals. “At these numbers whether
it’s players or staff is largely irrele-
vant to the decision of when to
resume — and the answer is em-
phatically not [Sunday]. You have
a large outbreak in a traveling
party that spends time indoors
together. Assume anyone could be
infected at this point.”
[email protected]BY DAVE SHEININMajor League Baseball’s hopes
of salvaging its 2020 season amid
a pandemic took another ominous
turn Saturday, when the St. Louis
Cardinals received word of addi-
tional positive tests for the novel
coronavirus, requiring the post-
ponement of the entire Cardinals-
Brewers weekend series in Mil-
waukee and deepening the level of
pessimism around the sport that
the season can go on.
The Cardinals, who reported
two positive tests Friday, saw an-
other four Saturday, one of which
was a player, using rapid tests. For
the second straight day, that day’s
Cardinals-Brewers game was
called off — the 16th game of this
abbreviated MLB season to be
postponed because of the virus —
and MLB later announced a
scheduled doubleheader for Sun-
day also had been postponed.
The Cardinals’ outbreak is one
of two that have arisen in the past
week, casting doubt on baseball’s
ability to contain the virus and
safely navigate a 6 0-game regular
season. The Miami Marlins have
seen 18 players and two coaches
test positive in the past week, halt-
ing their season until Tuesday,
when they are expected to resume
following an eight-day hiatus.
“We are playing,” Commission-
er Rob Manfred told ESPN’s Karl
Ravech. “The players need to be
better [about following health and
safety protocols], but I am not a
quitter in general, and there is no
reason to quit now. We have had to
be fluid, but it is manageable.”
Both outbreaks occurred dur-
ing road trips, with the Cardinals’
believed to have originated in
Minneapolis, where they played
against the Minnesota Twins be-
fore continuing on to Milwaukee.
The Cardinals are likely to re-
main in self-isolation at their Mil-
waukee hotel, where they are un-
dergoing daily coronavirus testing
and contact tracing. News of the
Cardinals’ latest positive tests was
first reported Saturday by former
big league third baseman Trevor
Plouffe, who is now the co-host of a
podcast.
Saturday also brought two new
opt-outs from players — Brewers
all-star center fielder Lorenzo
Cain and Marlins infielder Isan
Díaz — illustrating the growing
lack of confidence from some play-
ers in baseball’s ability to keep
participants safe.
“With all of the uncertainty and
unknowns surrounding our game
at this time, I feel that this is the
best decision for me, my wife, and
our three kids,” Cain said in a
statement. “The Brewers organi-
zation was very understanding
and supportive of my decision,
and I thank them for that. I wish
all of my great teammates the best
of luck this season and look for-
ward to getting back on the field in
- Please stay safe.”
Díaz was not among the 18 Mar-
lins played who tested positive;
those infected players were in the
midst of an overnight trip on mul-
tiple buses from Philadelphia,
where they had been in self-isola-
tion at the team hotel since Mon-
day, to Miami.
“This has been a tough week to
see so many of my teammates
come down with this virus, and see
how quickly it spreads,” Díaz
wrote in an Instagram post.
“... This has been a decision that I
have discussed with my family,
and I feel it’s the best one for me
and my overall well-being.”
The news came at the start of the
second weekend of the 2020 season
and at a critical juncture in base-
ball’s fight against the coronavirus.
Cardinals’ outbreak
continues to worsen
Four more positive tests
add to the uncertainty
MLB must navigateJIM MONE/ASSOCIATED PRESSSt. Louis had additional games postponed Saturday after t esting
revealed multiple coronavirus infections within its organization.