The Washington Post - USA (2020-08-10)

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SPORTS

MONDAY, AUGUST 10 , 2020. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/SPORTS M2 D

PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

TPC Harding Park, top finishers

POS. TO PAR

1Collin Morikawa -13

T2 Paul Casey -11

Dustin Johnson -11

T4 Matthew Wolff -10

Jason Day -10

Tony Finau -10

B. DeChambeau -10

Scottie Scheffler -10

9 Justin Rose -9

Nationals at Mets

Today, 7:10 p.m., MASN

Game 1: Capitals vs. Islanders

Wednesday, 3 p.m., NBCSW

BY SAMANTHA PELL

toronto — T wo weeks ago, the

Washington Capitals entered the

bubble environment here preach-

ing nothing but confidence. They

had a roster teeming with Stanley

Cup playoff experience. They had

stayed healthy in training camp,

other than an off-ice injury suf-

fered by backup goaltender Ilya

Samsonov before the NHL’s re-

start. They had made it to their

hub city amid the novel coronavi-

rus pandemic safely and almost

completely intact.

Once they hit the ice at Scotia-

bank Arena, however, the Capi-

tals looked lifeless in their first

two round-robin games and

quickly faced gaping holes in

their lineup. Their offense dried

up, and their defense wasn’t up

to par. Their need to find an

“extra gear” became a recurring

theme during news conferences.

The Capitals still didn’t put

together a full 60 minutes of

quality hockey in their final

round-robin game Sunday

against the Boston Bruins, but

Washington’s 2-1 win was a

marked improvement from its

previous two outings. The victory

over the Presidents’ Trophy win-

ners earned the Capitals the No. 3

seed in the Eastern Conference

and sets up a first-round playoff

series against the New York

I slanders beginning Wednesday.

“We all understand what play-

off games mean and how we have

to play,” Capitals captain Alex

Ovechkin said. “Lots of guys

[were on the team that won the

Stanley Cup in 2018], and we

know what it takes. It doesn’t

matter how much time you have;

you just have to do your job.”

SEE CAPITALS ON D5

Familiar

face is

next for

the Caps

CAPITALS 2,

BRUINS 1

Trotz’s Islanders await

in first-round series

distressing and incongruous.

Sports escapism has been

suspended. There is a chance

the ol’ reliable expectation of

games as breezy diversions may

never return.

As a result, American

athletics probably have entered

an era of spectator volatility.

Some of these leagues don’t

realize it, but they will soon.

Sports specialize in attaching

themselves to what’s considered

safe and unassailable, such as

patriotism. Never before have

they been this forceful, as a

collective, in taking positions on

anything polarizing. In post-

George Floyd America, there’s a

spirit of national compassion

that, while not universal, has

strength in numbers. For the

business leaders in sports, the

SEE BREWER ON D2

Sports are like
tree sap now.
They stick to
everything. Some
might consider it
an annoyance,
others a nutrient.
Many of these
games are being
played in a bubble, but
considering all that afflicts
society in 2020, no space is
impenetrable.
You can’t hide. If it feels
suffocating at times, that’s the
point. It should be taken not as
a threat but as an
acknowledgment of reality. The
experience of watching sports
right now — in defiance of a
pandemic, amid racial
turbulence, against the
backdrop of economic
catastrophe — should feel weird,

Once an escape from t he world,

sports are now a w indow into it

Jerry

Brewer

PRO BASKETBALL

The Mystics keep sliding,

falling to Indiana for their

fourth straight defeat. D 2

PRO BASKETBALL

The Wizards’ bubble trouble

continues with another loss

against Oklahoma City. D5

BY ADAM KILGORE

Jay Schneider wants the spit-

ting to stop. He sees players spit

when he flips on an MLB game or

when he watches his 16-year-old

play in a Minnesota youth league.

It drives him mad. At the Mayo

Clinic, Schneider is a leading re-

searcher of how covid-19, the dis-

ease caused by the novel corona-

virus, affects the heart. What

S chneider is learning in his work

troubles him with increasing

gravity.

It makes him wish even young,

healthy people would take every

precaution not to spread the coro-

navirus, and he knows tiny drop-

lets of saliva are an ideal vessel for

it. Baseball players don’t stop

spitting, Schneider thinks, be-

cause they don’t consider, or don’t

know, the consequences of con-

tracting the virus enough to break

the habit.

“They think, ‘If I get it, it’s not a

big deal; it’s going to be like

having a cold,’ ” Schneider said.

“It may not just be a cold. It may

SEE VIRUS ON D6

Health experts sound troubling alarm

Studies have shown coronavirus may cause lasting heart issues for athletes

MICHAEL DWYER/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Boston’s Eduardo Rodriguez t ested positive for the coronavirus

and is o ut for the year after an M RI exam revealed myocarditis.

BY CHUCK CULPEPPER

san francisco — F rom a psychedelic

seven-way tie for first place so tangled with

story lines it felt almost incomprehensible

to follow, the 102nd PGA Championship

distilled to a shining simplicity by Sunday

evening. It narrowed to a single case of

what looks an awful lot like fresh great-

ness.

It came down to a 23-year-old in his

second major tournament forging two

shots sure to glow in memory, the latter

even more searing than the former. It came

down to a guy who teed off in the silence of

the absence of galleries to two dudes over

on the left shouting, “Go Bears,” a remind-

er this affable Southern Californian with

the airtight game went to nearby Cal.

It came down to Collin Morikawa burst-

ing from that bustling pack in TPC Hard-

ing Park’s debut major and elevating a

career only 14 months long that already

registered as deeply impressive. What

looked all day like a probable playoff fea-

turing so many people they would clog up

the tee like a morning on the nearby Bay

Bridge wound up — somehow — as an

homage to one.

“I mean, I don’t even know” what to

think, he said, even if his confidence sug-

gests he rather does.

Of course, he’s one who shot a holy-mer-

cy 64 on the stunning par-70 course, fol-

lowing up on his 65 of Saturday with a par

save on No. 1, four birdies, an eagle and

zero bogeys for a two-shot win at 13 under

SEE PGA ON D3

23 and glee

Morikawa sparkles in final round to win PGA Championship, just his second major tournament

JEFF CHIU/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Just about everything went right for Collin Morikawa on Sunday at the PGA Championship — except when the top of the Wanamaker Trophy toppled.

BY JESSE DOUGHERTY

Mike Rizzo, the architect of a

team lumbering through the odd-

est of title defenses — not to

mention working amid the novel

coronavirus pandemic — isn’t

worried. Or, at the very least, the

Washington Nationals’ general

manager is not projecting worry

in public.

Rizzo showed as much Sunday

morning, before a lazy game was

cut short by weather and a stub-

born tarp. The entire afternoon

would feel like a tired metaphor

for a twisted summer. Stephen

Strasburg was dominant through

four innings of his season debut

before the Baltimore Orioles

tagged him for five runs in the

fifth. In the sixth, a storm pushed

in, the grounds crew couldn’t get

the tarp undone, and, for close to

15 minutes, most of the field at

Nationals Park was drenched by

unobstructed rain.

By the time the workers jostled

it loose, the sun peeked out and

the area around second base

looked like a small pond. The field

wasn’t entirely covered until it

SEE NATIONALS ON D3

Nats’ day is

frustrating

from tarp

to bottom

Strasburg falters in fifth,

then game is suspended

after rain soaks bare field