The Washington Post - USA (2020-11-22)

D2 EZ M2 THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22 , 2020

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SOCCER
10:15 a.m. Spanish La Liga: Real Sociedad at Cádiz » beIN Sports
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7:30 p.m. MLS playoffs, first round: Colorado at Minnesota » ESPN
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GOLF
5 a.m. European Tour: Joburg Open, final round » G olf Channel
1 p.m. PGA Tour: RSM Classic, final round » G olf Channel

TENNIS
10:30 a.m. ATP World Tour Finals, doubles final » T ennis Channel
1 p.m. ATP World Tour Finals, singles final » E SPN2

SWIMMING
Noon International Swimming League final, last day » C BS Sports Network

MOTORSPORTS

8:30 a.m. MotoGP: Portuguese Grand Prix » N BC Sports Network

MEN’S COLLEGE SOCCER

Noon ACC tournament, final: Clemson vs. Pittsburgh » E SPNU

WOMEN’S COLLEGE SOCCER
2 p.m. SEC tournament, final: Vanderbilt vs. Arkansas » S EC Network

KOREA BASEBALL ORGANIZATION
4:30 a.m.
(Monday)

Korean Series, Game 5: Doosan vs. NC » E SPN2

TENNIS

Thiem tops Djokovic;

Medvedev edges Nadal

Instead of No. 1 Novak
Djokovic vs. No. 2 Rafael Nadal
for the ATP Finals trophy, it will
be No. 3 Dominic Thiem against
No. 4 Daniil Medvedev.
Nadal had won 7 1 matches in a
row when he grabbed the opening
set, and he served for the victory
in Saturday’s semifinals up 5-4 in
the second set. But Medvedev
broke at love there and came all
the way back to win, 3-6, 7-6 (7-4),
6-3, at O2 Arena in London.
That came after Thiem
frittered away four match points
in his semifinal against Djokovic
because he was “tight and
nervous” during a second-set
tiebreaker. T hiem gathered
himself and eventually reeled off
seven of the match’s last eight
points after trailing 4-0 in the last
tiebreaker, winning 7-5, 6 -7
( 12-10), 7-6 (7-5).
“What he did from 0-4 in the
third-set tiebreaker was just
unreal,” said Djokovic, a 17-time
Grand Slam champion. “I don’t
think I played bad.... He just
crushed the ball, and everything
went in.”
Thiem ended Djokovic’s bid for
a record-tying sixth ATP Finals
trophy, while Medvedev
prevented Nadal from continuing
to pursue the most significant
title the 20-time major champ has
not won.
It was the first time since 2004
that the top four players in the
rankings filled the four semifinal
slots for the ATP Finals.

WINTER SPORTS
In L evi, Finland, Petra Vlhova
held on to her opening-run lead
to beat Mikaela Shiffrin in a
women’s World Cup slalom that
was the American’s first race in
nearly 10 months.
The Slovakian also posted the
fastest time in the second run and
extended her advantage over
Shiffrin to 0.18 seconds.
“It wasn’t easy as it started
snowing and also the course was
a bit destroyed,” Vlhova said. “But
I did it, and I am really happy.
First victory in the first slalom of
the season is always good.”
Austria’s Katharina
Liensberger was 0.57 behind in
third, while the rest of the field
was at least 1.35 off the lead.
Shiffrin hadn’t competed since
January. Her previous season
ended prematurely after the
death of her father, Jeff Shiffrin,
followed by the cancellation of
the season-ending races amid the
coronavirus outbreak. Then she
sat out the first race of the new
season in Austria in October with
a back injury.
“It’s kind of crazy to be back
after a very long time and
everything,” Shiffrin said after her
opening run. “It’s pretty amazing,
and I am just really happy to be
here.”
In a s treak that s tarted in
January 2017, the past 27 World
Cup slaloms have been won by
either Shiffrin, with 19 wins, or
Vlhova.
Vlhova won the season-long
slalom title last year, edging
Shiffrin by 20 points, after the
American won it six times in the
previous seven seasons.
Another women’s slalom is
scheduled for Sunday....
Figure skaters Elizaveta
Tuktamysheva and Mikhail
Kolyada held off challenges to
win their e vents at the
Rostelecom Cup in Moscow.
Tuktamysheva landed six triple

jumps in her free skate to win with a total of 223. 39 points for her first Grand Prix title since Skate Canada in 2018. European champion Alena Kostornaia l ed after Friday’s short program but finished second on 220.78 after some awkward landings in the free skate. Kolyada earned his first Grand Prix victory in three years after overtaking short-program leader Morisi Kvitelashvili in the men’s free skate. Kolyada landed two quadruple toeloops on his way to a total score of 281.89. Georgian skater Kvitelashvili saw his six-point advantage over Kolyada from the short program e vaporate after he fell on a quad toeloop and placed second on 275.80.... L olo Jones is back on the USA Bobsled women’s national team, making the 10-person roster after two days of team trials at Mount Van Hoevenberg near Lake Placid, N.Y. It’s the fifth bobsled national team berth for Jones, 38, who competed for USA Track and Field at the 200 8 Beijing Olympics and 2012 London Games, then pivoted to bobsled and made the team that competed at the 2014 PyeongChang Games. Reigning world champion Kaillie Humphries already had clinched a berth on the national team, along with L auren Gibbs, Elana Meyers Taylor and Nicole Vogt.

SWIMMING American Caeleb Dressel set a pair of short-course world records at the International Swimming L eague final in Budapest. D ressel became the first swimmer to eclipse 48 seconds in the 100-meter butterfly, touching with a time of 47.78. About 40 minutes later, Dressel took won the 50 freestyle in 20.16, eclipsing his own short-course record by 0.08. In the 100 fly, the 24-year-old Florida native broke the mark of

08 set by South Africa’s Chad
Le Clos at 2016 Short Course
World C hampionships.
Le C los finished second in
Saturday’s race in 48.45.
Dressel, who won two relay
golds at the 2016 Rio Olympics,
won 13 gold medals and two
silvers at the past two world
championships in the 50-meter
pool.

MISC. World long jump champion Malaika Mihambo of Germany wants to double up with the 100 meters at the To kyo Olympics next summer. Mihambo, 26, won the world long jump title in Doha last year and has sprinted occasionally during her career with a personal best of 11.21 seconds in the 100 last year.... Italian auto racing champion- turned-Paralympic gold medalist Alex Zanardi was transferred to a hospital in Padua to continue his recovery, more than five months after he was seriously injured in a handbike crash. Zanardi, 54, has had s everal surgeries to stabilize him and reconstruct his severely damaged face after he crashed into an oncoming truck during a relay event near the Tuscan town of Pienza on June 19. Zanardi lost both of his legs in an auto racing crash nearly 20 years ago. — From news services

DIGEST

BY JESSE DOUGHERTY

These questions have now reached five pitching coaches, from Steve McCatty to Mike Mad- dux, Derek Lilliquist to Paul Men- hart, then Jim Hickey once he was hired by the Washington Nation- als in October: How do Joe Ross, Erick Fedde and Austin Voth take the next step? For the past half-decade, Ross, Fedde and Voth have existed be- tween making it and almost t here. That can be an incredibly thin margin. They have, among the three o f them, occupied every inch of it. R oss, 27, has gone f rom pitching in the playoffs in 2016 to un- dergoing To mmy John surgery in 2017 t o spending half of 2019 in the minors before starting Game 5 of the World Series against the As- tros. Fedde, also 27, was a first- round draft pick i n 2014 a nd is still trying to stick in the major league rotation. And Voth, 28, beat out Fedde last summer before making a mess of a golden opportunity, finishing with a 6.34 ERA that cast doubt on his future in Washing- ton. There could be a hundred rea- sons, maybe more, for a pitcher veering off track. But a simple one that connects Ross, Fedde and Voth is the lack of a reliable change-up. Ross threw his change-up just 7.6 percent of the time in 2019, his most recent season before he opted out of 202 0 because of health concerns. Simi- larly, Fedde’s change-up takes a back seat to his sinker, his curve- ball and a cutter that resembles a slider. Voth, not to be outdone, throws his change-up the least of the three, logging fewer than 40 across 952 total pitches in 2020. Each of those statistics is a well- timed cue for Hickey. In his first remarks after becoming t heir new pitching coach, Hickey stressed his affection for change-ups. He made it the crux of billing himself as a blend of modern and old school. And perhaps he hinted at his approach to tweaking Ross, Fedde or Voth, with the Nationals needing o ne of t hem to adequately fill out the rotation. That may

sound all too familiar. “I’m a huge believer in the change-up,” Hickey said in Octo- ber. “I don’t force anybody to throw change-ups, but if I see something... A lot of guys don’t like the change-up because it’s not a sexy pitch, it’s not a huge swing- and-miss pitch f or a l ot o f guys, but there’s a l ot of outs in there, t here’s a lot more efficiency in there, and at the end of the year there’s a lot more innings in there as well.” Hickey half-joked that his core philosophy is for pitchers to “throw strikes, work quick and change speeds.” But the c hange-up was next on his list, with support- ing evidence on the staff he inher- its. Stephen Strasburg throws one of the game’s best change-ups. Max Scherzer’s is a big part of his Hall of Fame arsenal. Hickey’s main argument is that change-ups are typically easier to control than sliders or curveballs, making them a better secondary option to steal a strike when behind in the count. He also thinks more change-ups can lead to higher efficiency and longer starts. An upfront issue is that Ross, Fedde and Voth don’t throw change-ups to right-handed bat-

ters. For Ross, that effectively shaves his mix down to a sinker and slider. He has often discussed refining a third pitch, and that h as often meant sharpening his change-up. For Voth, left-handed batters can forget his change-up and key on a four-seam fastball or curve. Fedde, on the other hand, has m ore t ools than Ross and Voth but no clear put-away pitch. And throwing very few change-ups to right-handed batters — just 14 total in 2020, a shortened season — makes him much more predict- able with two strikes. (A quick aside for anyone doing research at h ome: Fedde constant- ly confuses the cameras that track and label pitches, l eading t o a rash of competing data on analytics websites FanGraphs, Statcast and Brooks Baseball. In a text conver- sation last week, Fedde said Stat- cast provides the most accurate look at his pitch usage — even if, like all analytics sites, it calls his change-up a “split finger” fastball because of its low spin rate.) What Ross, Fedde and Voth would gain with a change-up is more deception. It doesn’t have to develop into their most dominant off-speed pitch. It just has to be

good enough to put another thought in hitters’ heads, which would elevate the rest of the arsenal. Ross’s change-up has been hit pretty hard in a limited data set. Fedde’s and Voth’s have been ser- viceable in even fewer instances. But given the numbers and career change-up usage for all three, it’s clear that confidence is low. Voth gave the most overt exam- ples of that in 202 0. He threw 144 pitches when behind in the count against right-handed hitters; zero were change-ups, ac- cording to Brooks Baseball. He threw 136 pitches when ahead against right-handed hitters; two were change-ups. The totals were not much higher when Voth faced left-handed hitters. Avoiding his change-up when ahead could mean Voth i sn’t sure about inducing a swing-and- miss with that pitch. Avoiding it when b ehind shows t hat he would rather lean even harder on his fastball and c urve, eliminating deception, instead of trying to throw his change-up for a needed s trike. “You all of a s udden g et y ourself into a 2-0 count in a tight spot, [and] it’s pretty difficult to just think you’re going to go a head a nd drop this big breaking pitch into the strike zone for a called strike,” Hickey explained. “Whereas a change-up, it’s a lot easier. And also I just like it because it obvi- ously looks like a fastball, it comes out in that same plane as the fastball and hopefully has a little bit less velocity and a little bit more movement. I love it because when you can record those quick outs, it really starts giving you confidence.” So their new pitching coach says change-ups are a great way to fight back in counts, an area Ross, Fedde and Voth can improve in. He says the pitch can shorten at- bats, extend outings and help nudge starters toward 200 innings, with only Ross ever having reached half of that. Ross, Fedde and Voth, each stuck in a perpetu- al hunt for answers, could benefit from tinkering with that logic. It never hurts to try. [email protected]

ANALYSIS

For these Nationals pitchers, change-up is in the air

JEFF HAYNES/ASSOCIATED PRESS Joe Ross, Erick Fedde and Austin Voth could benefit from pitching coach Jim Hickey, center, and his advocacy of the change-up.

Red Sox. “This is major. It really is.” After leaving the Dodgers in 2011, Ng went to MLB headquar- ters as senior vice president of baseball operations, a role in which she worked with all 30 teams and oversaw the international branch. Though she was the highest-ranking woman in baseball, Ng never stopped chasing a GM job. Her name continued to pop up on shortlists. In 2018, the Mets, San Francisco Giants and Baltimore Orioles had openings, and Joe To rre, her boss at t he MLB office, called several teams to vouch for her. Still, Ng couldn’t land a GM position — a process that left her feeling “defeated and deflated.” Then, this month, the Marlins called. Ahead of her introduction, with more than 100 media members on the Zoom call, Ng posed for por- traits inside empty Marlins Park. While standing on home plate, Ng crossed her hands and wore the faintest of grins. She looked very much like the organization’s top decision-maker — and exactly how her most ardent allies have always envisioned her. “I have chills about this,” Stew- ard said. “I always thought this could happen. I have to say, though, it’s been a while, and when it finally did happen, I just felt all kinds of emotions.” [email protected]

“Honey, can you get me coffee?” they asked her. They pulled Evans aside and asked him, “What is she doing here?” In 2003, when Ng was an assistant general manager with the Dodgers and attending the an- nual GM meetings, she was having a drink with colleagues when New York Mets special assistant Bill Singer questioned where she was from (she was born in Indian- apolis) and mocked her Chinese heritage. “I just love that the shallow people who just decided that they were going to inject racism and inject gender-centric comments, I just know that they’re retching a little bit today,” Evans said of Ng’s hire. “I knew the challenges that she had throughout her career: the harassment, the stigma, the glass ceiling. It’s a ll gone now. She is the general manager of the Mi- ami Marlins, and she just happens to be a woman and she just happens to be Asian American. And that’s a great day for our game.” Yet it’s a day some could not envision — not because of Ng’s abilities but because of the glacial pace at which the male-dominat- ed sports leagues embrace change. “Baseball is so traditional, and change doesn’t come quickly, al- though it is changing,” said Stew- ard, now a vice president and senior club counsel for the Boston

tion and working on offseason projects. When spring training ar- rived, the gig should have been over. By then, however, Evans already had promoted Ng to a full- time position. “I just always thought she was going to be that glass-ceiling breaker,” Evans said. Ng became a kind of utility player for the team’s front office. She attended arbitration hearings with the club’s resident baseball lifer, a man named Jack Gould who kept an unlit cigar in his mouth and possessed no filter when it came to speaking his mind. “I would be a little intimidated by that,” White Sox senior execu- tive vice president Howard Pizer said. “But I don’t think she was.” During games, she charted pitches and worked the radar gun. When the draft approached, Zwit had to do the menial but neces- sary job of alphabetizing stacks of 500 draft cards. Ng raised her hand to help. “There was some garbage work that needed to be done, just like bottom-of-the-totem-pole type stuff, and she [would say]: ‘Give it to me. I’ll do it,’ ” Zwit said. “Noth- ing was ever beneath her. Noth- ing.” Any meeting Evans had — with executives, agents, players — Ng followed. So did the doubt and disdain from White b aseball men.

along the way. B ut the top rungs of baseball — like the top rungs of other pro leagues — remained a boys’ club. In 2 011, after nine years as an assistant GM with the Dodg- ers, Ng left for a job in the major league office. And even though she kept interviewing, it seemed Ng’s narrative would end up simi- lar to those of so many other women who cracked the glass ceiling but couldn’t bust through it. “It was kind of like: ‘Dang! She should’ve been the first [female] GM in Major League Baseball!’ ” said Rosalie Resch, the University of Chicago’s interim director of athletics who was an adviser during Ng’s college days, in an inter- view last week. “It was like: ‘Okay, is she going in a path that’s not going to let that happen?... Has this passed her by?’ ” Now that fear has been overtak- en by a wave of elation. Ng, 52, was introduced as the Marlins’ general manager M onday. N g described it as extraordinary. Others called it long overdue. “We all just knew that’s what she was driven to, to go to the top in the baseball department,” said Grace Guerrero Zwit, the senior director of minor league operations for the White Sox. “I thought it would happen sooner rather than this late.” Ng (pronounced Ang) has long shown a passion for the game — and for winning, her former coaches and colleagues say. After growing up playing stickball in Queens, sleeping under a poster of the 1978 World Series champion Yankees, N g led her overachieving Ridgewood High softball team to the New Jersey state finals. “She was the only one who cried and was upset that we should have won,” former Ridgewood coach Debbie Paul said. “She loved baseball.” At the University of Chicago, Ng captained her softball team as a sure-handed shortstop, but she was bent on leading the charge for women in other ways. During her senior year, she served as president of the university’s women’s athletic association and wrote a research paper on Title IX, high- lighting the low numbers in which women held leadership roles in sports. In 1990, after graduation, she beat out roughly 30 candidates to get her first job with the White Sox. Dan Evans, then the team’s assistant general manager, hired her for an internship that should have been four or five months of learning the art of salary arbitra-

NG FROM D1

Ng’s ascent more than a matter of time

JOSEPH GUZY/MIAMI MARLINS/ASSOCIATED PRESS Kim Ng spent decades climbing baseball’s ladder before being hired as general manager of the Marlins.

The Washington Post - USA (2020-11-22)

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