The game’s most fundamental piece of equipment is the focus
of debate during a historically slow offensive start to the yearWASHINGTON POST ILLUSTRATION/ISTOCK
This MLB season,
the ball is making
everyone batty
KLMNO
SPORTS
SUNDAY, MAY 15 , 2022. SECTION D EZ M2
BY SAMANTHA PELLWhen the Washington Capi-
tals look back at what went
wrong during their first-round
postseason series against the
Florida Panthers, the errors
should be pretty clear.
The Capitals had the final
three games of the first-round
series firmly in their grasp. But
then they gave all three away,
each collapse more gut-wrench-
ing than the last. Washington
was eliminated from the playoffs
with a 4-3 overtime loss in Game6 on Friday night.
“We basically gave the series to
them,” a somber Nicklas Back-
strom said after Game 6.
Washington had a 2 -1 t hird-pe-
riod lead in Game 4, a 3-0 lead in
the second period of Game 5 and
a 2-1 third-period lead in Game 6.
Each time, the Panthers stormed
back as the Capitals wilted.
“We were unable to capitalize
on all those opportunities,” said
winger T. J. Oshie, who led the
Capitals with six postseason
goals. “... Last three games, the
SEE CAPITALS ON D6Blown leads, missed chancesmark Caps’ exit from playo≠sKATHERINE FREY/THE WASHINGTON POST
With Friday’s loss to the Panthers, the Capitals have yet to win a
postseason series since their Stanley Cup victory in 2018.BY KAREEM COPELANDBrenda Frese says she wasn’t
surprised by the massive roster
shake-up that happened this off-
season. In one week, Maryland
lost its top two scorers and a top
reserve to the transfer portal. The
Terrapins certainly weren’t the
only women’s basketball program
with significant losses to the por-
tal, but the departures of stand-
outs Angel Reese and Ashley
Owusu were especially notable.
Since, Reese signed with LSU,
Owusu signed with Virginia Tech
and Mimi Collins will play at
North Carolina State next season.
“ None of this caught us off
guard,” Frese said in an April in-
terview. “We saw this coming
through the season. We knew we
were going to be portaling this
offseason.
“Unfortunately nowadays you
can’t make everyone happy. And
I’ll say everybody has different
individual reasons, right? One
might want to be marketed better
than the other or be the leading
scorer, or academically, Mimi
SEE MARYLAND ON D8After high-profile departures,
Frese restocks Terps’ roster
Sometimes, when
Spencer Haywood
watches a game at
home, the loutish
fan behavior takes
him back more
than 50 years. He
sees Chris Paul
reacting to a
Dallas Mavericks fan who
allegedly touched his mother and
pushed his wife in front of his
children. All of a sudden,
Haywood is back in 1970,
remembering the glass bottles
and c urse words tossed at him
and the people who dared to hit
him as he walked on and off the
court.
“They called me everything but
Mississippi,” said Haywood, a
Hall of Famer who grew up in
Silver City, Miss. “They hit me,
and I couldn’t do anything.”
Haywood was the enemy then
because he was a 21-year-old
challenging an NBA rule that
players couldn’t join the league
before they had been out of high
school for four years.
Paul was the enemy last week
because some rascal in Dallas
really wanted the Mavericks to
win Game 4.
That’s how it seemed, at least.
But there are too many recent
high-profile cases of
inappropriate fan behavior to
dismiss what’s happening as
heckling gone wild. Beyond the
anecdotal extremes, you can’t
turn on games without noticing
the abundance of chippy player-
crowd interactions. And the
tension extends to all forms of
entertainment, most notably (and
worrisome) Dave Chappelle being
attacked onstage at the
Hollywood Bowl.
It has been a little more than a
year since sports and live e vents
began reopening their doors to
normal-size crowds. At this time
last year, perhaps some of the
nasty behavior — Trae Young
being spit on at Madison Square
Garden, an injured Russell
Westbrook having popcorn
dumped on him as he walked to
SEE BREWER ON D7
In wave of
fan abuse,
echoes of
an ugly past
Jerry
Brewer
HIGH SCHOOLS
It’s title time, with
hardware awarded in
baseball, rowing, softball,
tennis and lacrosse. D9-10ON THE NBA
Ben Golliver on Joel
Embiid and the
disappointing 76ers. Is an
exit in the cards? D7STANLEY CUP PLAYOFFS
Carolina and defending
champion Tampa Bay
survive Game 7s, advance
to the second round. D6
SOCCER
D.C. United overcomes a
two-goal deficit on the
road, earning a 2-2 draw
against Inter Miami. D2
BY CHELSEA JANESFor much of the past half-decade,
Major League Baseball has been
flooded with new data, influencing
how the game is played and run.
This season, that information has
put a focus on the sport’s most fundamental
piece of equipment: the ball.
From its production to its functionality, the
ball has emerged as both cause and symptom
of a historically slow offensive start to the
season, leading to accusations and conspiracy
theories. Through the season’s first month,
major league hitters had a combined .233
batting average, the lowest since 1968, and a
.629 on-base-plus-slugging percentage, the
lowest since 1981. Hitters shake their head as
they watch high flyballs drop in front of the
wall during batting practice. Pitchers grumble
about their inability to get a grip — some more
publicly than others.
“I’m hesitant to say it’s a big deal because if
everybody has t o deal with it, you’re like, well,everybody is on the same level of having to
deal with it,” veteran reliever Collin McHugh
said. “But I would like to not have to, every
pitch, see what the ball feels like, decide
whether I c an throw the pitch I want to throw
with it, whether I should try to get a new
ball.”
Generations of big leaguers have played
with baseballs that are sewn by hand with
leather that is a product of its own distinct
environment. The baseballs have never been
identical. But thanks to the widespread
availability of spin rate, exit velocity and ball
flight data, this generation of big leaguers
knows exactly how much those inconsisten-
cies impact performance.
If the seams are lower than usual and a
pitcher snaps off a curveball with a slightly
lower spin rate than average and that curve-
ball gets hit, was it the pitcher? Or was it the
ball? How much should a pitcher be expected
SEE BASEBALL ON D3BY ANDREW GOLDENThe Nationals’ offensive incon-
sistencies have certainly played a
part in the team’s slow start. But
when Washington’s bats are di-
aled in, runs can come in bunch-
es. Such was the case Saturday
night in a 13-6 win over the
Houston Astros at N ationals Park.
With 14 hits, sparked by out-
fielder Yadiel Hernandez early
and sustained by his teammates
through the middle innings,
Washington (12-23) snapped
Houston’s 11-game winning
streak. Hernandez drove in four
runs on his own in his first two
at-bats against a Houston pitch-
ing staff that hadn’t a llowed more
than three runs in a game in May.
“It was obviously a really good
feeling,” Hernandez said through
an interpreter. “But I honestly
didn’t know until I looked up on
the board at some point during
the game and said, ‘Four RBIs?’ ”
“I started doing the math, and
obviously, once you realize that,
it’s a good feeling.”
In the first inning, Hernandez
fought off a pair of breaking balls
to extend his at-bat with runners
on first and second and two outs.
Then he lined a single off Cristian
Javier that scored Juan Soto with
the game’s first run.
Hernandez faced a similar situ-
ation in the third — this time with
runners on the corners — and hit
a knuckle-curve from Javier that
sailed into the Washington bull-
pen in right field.
The 34-year-old has been a
consistent yet surprising spark in
SEE NATIONALS ON D5Nats breakout b ats,finally haltthe AstrosNATIONALS 13,
ASTROS 6Hernandez has four RBI
but is dicey on defenseAstros at Nationals
Today, 1:35 p.m., MASN
Old friend: Dusty Baker’s back, with
a hot team and an open heart. D3