The Washington Post - 21.10.2019

D4 EZ SU THE WASHINGTON POST.MONDAY, OCTOBER 21 , 2019

to fill Wall’s starting spot, but the

fluke injury temporarily side-

tracked his assimilation in Wash-

ington.

“I’m past that. I’ve been

through real-life situations. I

mean, I really couldn’t control

that,” Thomas said Sept. 30. “I

went for the ball and I jammed

my thumb and then, I mean, you

know, it went to a torn ligament.

Everything happens for a

reason.”

His acceptance of the injury

aside, Thomas has pushed to

return sooner than his expected

timeline of six to eight weeks.

That hunger, however, has not

forced the Wizards into rushing

him back into the rotation.

“It takes time for it to heal,”

Brooks said. “That’s what makes

him an NBA player, because he

has the toughness and he has that

chip on his shoulder, but we’re

going to do what’s best for him

and we’re going to take that

toughness out of the equation

because he wants to play. He

wanted to practice last week, but

it takes time to heal. And it has.”

[email protected]

“The last couple of days he’s

been catching the ball with no

problems,” Brooks said. “He’s

played in some practice the last

[week], but today he went the

entirety. We’re going to make that

decision on what’s best for him

long term. I’d love to have him for

the first game, but we’ll see.

Probably not, but we’ll see.”

Still, with Sunday’s practice,

Thomas is on track to become the

first of the injured Wizards to

return to the floor. Others in-

clude forwards Troy Brown Jr.

and CJ Miles and center Ian

Mahinmi, who all missed the

preseason and have yet to return

to contact practices. Five-time

all-star point guard John Wall

remains the most significant

missing piece as he rehabilitates

from an Achilles’ tendon injury

he suffered in January.

Wall was spotted Sunday in a

sweatshirt, personalized with the

“5 Deep” nickname for his child-

hood friends, and joggers while

the active Wizards finished prac-

tice with individualized shooting.

Thomas signed a one-year mini-

mum contract with the Wizards

small piece of black tape wrapped

around the finger.

Although Thomas has been

cleared to take contact in practice

and is getting closer to a return,

he has not yet been penciled in to

play Wednesday at the Dallas

Mavericks.

of five-on-five.

“He looked good today,” Coach

Scott Brooks said.

Thomas worked out with pro-

tective tape over the thumb,

Brooks said. Even after practice,

the left-handed Thomas could be

seen lofting three-pointers with a

BY CANDACE BUCKNER

After most of his teammates

had cleared out of the locker

room Friday night in Philadel-

phia, Isaiah Thomas took a few

forkfuls of the postgame spread.

The Washington Wizards had

just completed their five-game

preseason schedule, and Thomas,

who didn’t practice at all during

training camp and over the next

several weeks while recovering

from left thumb surgery, burst

with anticipation for Wednes-

day’s regular season opener.

A plate of baked chicken

couldn’t satiate his real hunger.

“I’m definitely playing next

week, though,” Thomas said over

his shoulder as he left the visitors’

locker room at Wells Fargo

Center. “Fa sho!”

Thomas made significant

progress toward his pledge Sun-

day afternoon when he partici-

pated in a complete practice. It

was the first time the 30-year-old

point guard worked out fully with

teammates since Sept. 16, when

he ruptured a ligament in his

thumb during a voluntary game

houston — With

50 players across

two rosters, 18

pressure-packed

half-innings and

324 pitches

thrown by 14 different pitchers

over four-plus hours of high-

intensity baseball, Game 6 of the

American League Championship

Series between the Houston

Astros and New York Yankees on

Saturday night had untold

millions of possible permutations

for selecting the player, the pitch

and the moment that would bring

the entire endeavor to a dramatic

and satisfying end.

But the ending that ultimately

came to pass — José Altuve’s two-

out, two-run, ninth-inning, walk-

off homer against Yankees closer

Aroldis Chapman, which gave the

Astros the pennant and sent them

into a World Series matchup with

the Washington Nationals — was

more than merely dramatic and

satisfying. For telling the story of

these Astros, the twisting and

turning ALCS and the way

baseball is played here at the end

of 2019, it was the perfect vehicle.

Why was Altuve’s pennant-

clinching homer so fitting a

conclusion? This is why:

It was Altuve, the 5-foot-6

force of nature who defines the

Astros better than anybody.

“It could have been nobody else

but him,” Astros pitcher Justin

Verlander told reporters in their

champagne-soaked clubhouse. “It

was so perfectly fitting.”

Altuve, the 29-year-old second

baseman, is the longest-tenured

player on the Astros, predating

even the regime of General

Manager Jeff Luhnow. Signed out

of Venezuela at age 16 in 2007 for

a mere $15,000 — after his father

begged an Astros scout to give

him a tryout despite his

diminutive size — he blossomed

into an MVP (2017) and a central

character in the Astros’ current,

five-year run of success.

He was there for the 324 losses

between 2011 and 2013 as the

Astros endured an ugly

teardown/rebuild, and he has

been there for every step of the

climb to the top: the out-of-

nowhere playoff appearance in

2015, the World Series title in

2017, the 103 victories in 2018 and

the return to the World Series

that he ensured with one swing of

the bat Saturday night.

“He’s been here since the

beginning. He’s had a lot of big

moments,” Luhnow said in front

of the hastily assembled stage

where the Astros received the AL

championship trophy. “But to hit

a walk-off homer to send your

team to the World Series after

what happened, where we blew a

lead, that’s storybook stuff, and

there’s no player I’d script that for

better than Altuve. He’s ready for

that moment. He was ready for

that pitch, facing one of the best

closers in baseball. That’s

something we’re going to be

reading about for a long time.”

It was at Minute Maid Park.

The Astros are so good at home

— a major league-leading 60-21

this regular season, 15-5 over the

past three postseasons — that

when they lose a game there, as

they did in Game 1 of the ALCS, it

carries an element of shock.

On Saturday night, even after

the Astros blew a two-run lead in

the ninth — on DJ LeMahieu’s

game-tying homer off Houston

closer Roberto Osuna — there

was a sense of inevitability,

particularly as the top of the

Astros’ lineup came around

against Chapman in the ninth,

with George Springer drawing a

two-out walk ahead of Altuve’s

turn.

“It’s going out to left,” ace

Gerrit Cole, as later recounted to

Fox Sports, predicted on the

Houston bench when Altuve

came to the plate in the ninth.

“And it’s going deep.”

The 107-win Astros holding off

the 103-win Yankees in

September to claim home-field

advantage throughout the

playoffs was no small matter.

They rode their top players and

their best pitchers late in the

season to achieve it — precisely so

they could play the most

important postseason games,

such as Game 5 of the AL Division

Series against the Tampa Bay

Rays (a win), Game 6 of the ALCS

on Saturday night (another win)

and Game 1 of the World Series on

Tuesday night, in their own

building.

“This is one of the best places

to play,” Manager A.J. Hinch said.

“To reward [the fans] with that

experience of the walk-off homer,

give them a chance to just go

crazy at close to midnight and

know that we’ve got more

baseball to be played. We still

have home field for the World

Series. It’s why we worked our tail

off to get as many wins as we

could. It is for them. We want to

hang another flag for them, and

we’re four wins away.”

It was a homer.

As everyone knows by now,

this was the Year of the Home

Run in baseball, with a record

6,776 hit this year, 11 percent

more than any previous season in

history. And as everyone

predicted, this postseason was

going to come down to homers —

the team that hit the most was

going to prevail.

But guess what? It hasn’t

exactly happened that way. The

ALCS was the eighth series of this

postseason, including the wild-

card games, and the team that hit

the most homers is just 4-4 in

those series. That includes this

ALCS, in which the Yankees out-

homered the Astros 10-8. (The

Rays out-homered the Astros 7-6

in the division series as well.)

But what matters more than

the sheer number of homers is

the magnitude and the

circumstances — having runners

on base when the homers come

and hitting them late in games

and in the highest-leverage

situations.

Yuli Gurriel’s three-run homer

in Saturday night’s first inning,

off Yankees “opener” Chad Green,

was a perfect example. It was the

seventh three-run homer in this

postseason overall, with three of

them coming by the Astros

against the Yankees in this series.

Two of those, one each from

Springer and Carlos Correa, came

in their pivotal Game 4 win at

Yankee Stadium.

Likewise, there have been 11

homers hit this postseason in

situations designated as “high

leverage,” according to baseball-

reference.com, and five of those

have been hit by the Astros, two

by Altuve.

It was off Chapman and on a

slider.

If anything, this series

demonstrated the acute

limitations — dare we say the

folly? — of trying to do what the

Yankees did this postseason,

essentially attempting to ride an

elite bullpen to sustained success

over the course of what could

wind up being a four-week

enterprise. In stark contrast to

the Astros’ starter-reliant

approach, they consistently

pulled their starters in the middle

of games and leaned on five key

relievers.

It almost worked. But it had an

inherent flaw.

One of the reasons relievers

have become so successful in

modern baseball is the element of

novelty — when a batter sees a top

reliever only once per game, and

perhaps a few times in a season, it

is tougher than facing an elite

starter for a third time in a game

or a 10th or 12th time in a season.

But when Green faced Gurriel

in the first inning Saturday night,

for example, it was the fourth

time they had met in this series,

the first three of which resulted in

outs.

The Astros also knew

Chapman well, having beaten

him in Game 2 of the 2017 ALCS

— with Altuve starting the

winning rally with a one-out

single — and already had seen

him twice in this series, including

Game 2, when they extended him

to 25 pitches.

On Saturday night, the Yankees

could have chosen to walk or

pitch around Altuve and face

light-hitting defensive sub Jake

Marisnick instead. But they

pitched to Altuve, with Chapman

throwing a lazy, 2-1 slider that he

pounded high off the stadium

facade in left.

It was poor execution on the

part of Chapman but also poor

decision-making. Among other

reasons was this: Although this

may be the era of slider

dominance — with that pitch

rising in usage across the majors

in each of the past five seasons, to

a high of 18.3 percent of all

pitches in 2019 — the Astros are

the best at neutralizing it,

slugging .492 against sliders,

more than 50 points better than

any other team in the majors.

The Astros are now closing in

on dynastic status — or at least as

close as any team has come since

the 1996-2000 Yankees. They are

four wins against the Nationals

away from becoming the first

team since the 1942-44 St. Louis

Cardinals to win 100-plus games

in three straight seasons with at

least two World Series titles in the

same span.

“Our goal was to win multiple

championships,” Luhnow said

late Saturday night. “We’re not

there yet. We won one. Now we’re

going to another [World Series],

and hopefully we’ll get that done.”

[email protected]

Altuve’s ALCS-winning home run could not have been more fitting

ELSA/GETTY IMAGES

José Altuve got a bear hug from Justin Verlander after his two-run homer in the ninth inning Saturday night eliminated the Yankees and sent the Astros to the World Series.

BY BEN WALKER

Eric Cooper, a Major League
Baseball umpire who worked the
American League Division Series
two weeks ago, died at 52.
Commissioner Rob Manfred
announced Cooper’s death
Sunday.
Cooper died after having a
blood clot. He had knee surgery
earlier in the week and was recu-
perating at his father’s home in
Iowa. Popular with his fellow
umps, he was talking to them
Saturday about his recovery.
Cooper made his debut in the
majors in 1996 as a minor league
fill-in and joined the big league
staff in 1999.
His most recent assignment
came in the playoffs this month
when he worked the New York
Yankees’ sweep of Minnesota in
the ALDS. He was at second base
Oct. 7 for the clinching Game 3 at
Target Field.
Cooper worked the 2014 World
Series between the Kansas City
Royals and San Francisco Giants.
He drew that post with help from
his success rate on replay chal-
lenges — MLB took those num-
bers into account while picking
the crew, and Cooper had only
three calls reversed all season.
Cooper umpired in 10 division
series, four league championship
series and the 2005 All-Star Game
along with two World Baseball
Classics.
He was behind the plate for
three no-hitters — two by Mark
Buehrle, including a perfect
game, and another by Hideo
Nomo. Cooper also worked the
plate in the final game in the
career of Cal Ripken Jr.
“This is a very sad day across
Major League Baseball,” Manfred
said in a statement. “Eric Cooper
was a highly respected umpire, a
hard worker on the field and a
popular member of our staff. He
also served as a key voice of the
MLB Umpires Association on im-
portant issues in our game.”
In a statement, players union
chief Tony Clark said: “Eric Coo-
per’s friendly and familiar pres-
ence in the baseball community
will be missed by all of us. He was
a professional and gentleman
whose passion for our game, the
players and his fellow umpires
was evident in the way he went
about his work and life.”
Cooper was an Iowa native and
an Iowa State graduate. But he
was known for rooting for an-
other school — Notre Dame. He
frequently wore Fighting Irish
gear in the umpires’ locker rooms
while talking about the football
team’s success.
— Associated Press

Umpire

Cooper, 52,

dies after

surgery

With opening night nearly here, Thomas practices with Wizards

NICK WASS/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Point guard Isaiah Thomas, center, is nearing a return to action

after being sidelined last month with a ruptured thumb ligament.

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