tract, Washington wants to see what
it has in Samsonov before deciding on
Holtby’s future.
“I thought I was going to be more
nervous, but no, I felt normal,” Sam-
sonov said in a Russian-language in-
terview. “The guys all helped and said
there’s nothing scary. I felt great, it
was a good game, and I’m happy we
won.”
Captain Alex Ovechkin was the
first to pull Samsonov into an em-
brace on the ice after the final horn
sounded. Then in the locker room,
SEE CAPITALS ON D 7He finished with 25 saves in a game
that could, one day, mark the start of a
new era in net for the Capitals. The
team reassigned incumbent backup
Pheonix Copley to the American
Hockey League after he cleared waiv-
ers Thursday, settling on Samsonov
in large part because, with Braden
Holtby in the final year of his con-“He’s a tremendous young man,”
said Trotz, now the head coach of the
New York Islanders. “He’s got size;
he’s athletic; he’s been coached very
well. I know he’s got a real bright
future.”
That NHL future began to be real-
ized Friday night, when Samsonov,
22, beat the Islanders in his debut, 2-1.BY ISABELLE KHURSHUDYANuniondale, n.y. — Barry Trotz was
at the draft table in 2015 when the
Washington Capitals made a surpris-
ing choice with their first-round se-
lection, taking a goaltender that high
for the first time in nearly a decade.
But Trotz, then the team’s head coach,
had heard that Ilya Samsonov was
special from people outside of the
organization — that, at 18 years old,
the Russian was ahead of where Tam-
pa Bay star netminder Andrei Vasi-
levskiy was at that age.sabermetric bubble and remind
ourselves: Some of these feats
and some of these athletes are
absolutely incredible.
Friday afternoon, in the Astros’
6-2 win over the Rays at
Houston’s Minute Maid Park, was
a good time to do that. Altuve is a
modern marvel of physiology, a 5-
foot-6 bundle of fast-twitch
muscle and sinew, with what —
logic tells you even if there isn’t
yet a stat for it — must be some of
the fastest hands known to
mankind.
To catch up to those pitches
and to drive them over the wall
out of that undersized body — as
Altuve, the 2017 AL MVP, did
31 times this regular season and
SEE ON BASEBALL ON D 4every action comes with a
mathematical explanation. We
know, for example, that the two-
run homer Altuve, the Houston
Astros’ second baseman, hit on
that pitch from Glasnow, a Tampa
Bay Rays starter, traveled 358 feet
with an exit velocity of 98.7 mph
and a launch angle of 29 degrees.
But occasionally it is worth our
while to step back from ourTyler Glasnow
throws a fastball
up to 100 mph out
of a 6-foot-8 frame
and a lanky right
arm, which, all
told, means his
release point is somewhere
around 52^1 / 2 feet from home plate.
The 1-1 fastball he threw to Jose
Altuve in the fifth inning of
Game 1 of the American League
Division Series was 97.5 mph and
up near the letters — meaning
Altuve, in those few milliseconds,
not only had to decide to swing
but adjust his bat path, mid-
swing, to reach the high heat.
It’s easy in any sport — but
baseball especially — to get lost in
the numbers to the point thatBY CHUCK CULPEPPERStart the movie with a long
sequence of wretched college
football recruiters barreling the
22 miles south from Houston on
Highway 288. Note their usual
addled expressions. Hear their
groupthink.
It’s the mid-2010s, and they
reach Manvel, fresh football hot-
bed in the widening metropolis.
They evaluate the smorgasbord of
talent among Manvel High Mav-
ericks, and the chatter turns to the
backup quarterback.
He has made zero high schoolKLMNO
SP OR TS
S A T U R D A Y, O C T O B E R 5 , 2 0 1 9 . W A S H I N G T O N P O S T. C O M / S P O R T S SU D
NLDS GAME 3
Dodgers at Nationals
Ryu (14-5) vs. Scherzer (11-7)
Tomorrow, 7:45 p.m., TBS
L.A. leads best-of-five series, 1-0Game 2 goes late: For full
coverage, visit us online at
washingtonpost.com.Tending to the future
starts, but he’s a big lad with a big
arm and the look of a dream
quarterback.
Or: He’s a big lad with a big armand the look of a dream quarter-
back, but he has made zero high
school starts.
College coaches: “We can’t signhim, because he’s a backup.”
Manvel coaches: “He’s not real-
ly a backup. He’s just behind the
most electric player in Texas.” Cut
to footage of starter D’Eriq King,
future University of Houston
quarterback, tallying his thou-
sands of yards.
Note that Manvel coaches un-
derstood the college coaches be-
cause the college coaches had
their livelihoods to protect. Note
that Manvel’s coaches also
couldn’t understand the college
coaches, because by now the Man-
vel coaches long since knew a
SEE GATORS ON D 8JAMES GILBERT/GETTY IMAGESSince taking over at quarterback, Kyle Trask has rallied Florida
from a 21-10 deficit and helped it outscore its opponents 91-3.
BY LES CARPENTERAfter several days of vague
comments, secret hints and sub-
terfuge, Redskins Coach Jay
Gruden finally walked to an inter-
view lectern at the team’s practice
facility Friday and named a start-
ing quarterback for Sunday’s
game against the New England
Patriots.
It will be Colt McCoy.
He was probably the quarter-
back Gruden wanted to pick all
along, something he essentially
admitted when he made the an-
nouncement.
“Yeah, I decided a long time
ago. We’re starting Colt, and we’ll
go from there,” he said.
The move is not a surprise.
Gruden has long had a fondness
for the player who has been the
team’s backup for most of the
five-plus years that Gruden has
been Washington’s coach. McCoy
knows Gruden’s offense, under-
stands the way Gruden thinks
and is well liked in the locker
room. Gruden has kept him on the
team because he served as a reli-
able backup to Kirk Cousins and
later Alex Smith.
With the Redskins 0-4 and go-
ing against the Super Bowl cham-
pions with Gruden’s job in jeopar-
dy, McCoy is the quarterback
Gruden is most comfortable play-
ing.
When Smith broke his leg last
November, McCoy only lasted for
parts of three games until he, too,
went down with a broken leg in a
Dec. 3 loss at Philadelphia. Mc-
Coy’s leg was supposed to have
healed by the time the team start-
ed offseason workouts, but com-
plications from the original sur-
gery led to three more surgeries
this past winter, sidelining him
until training camp.
Still, McCoy all but won the
starting job in the first two weeks
of camp before lingering pain in
his surgically repaired leg forced
him to miss the next eight weeks,
a fact Gruden conceded Friday
when he said, “Well, it’s his job to
lose for sure.”
Gruden named Case Keenum
the starter before the season, in
SEE REDSKINS ON D 6
Gruden
tabs McCoy
as his QB
vs. Patriots
Imperiled Redskins coach
favors longtime backup’s
comfort in his systemCOLLEGE FOOTBALL SATURDAY: GAMES TO WATCHNationally14 Iowa at 19 Michigan
Noon, Fox
7 Auburn at 10 Florida
3:30 p.m., CBS
25 Michigan St. at 4 Ohio St.
7:30 p.m., ABCLocallyMaryland at Rutgers
Big Ten Network, noon
Virginia Tech at Miami
ESPN, 3:30 p.m.
Air Force at Navy
CBS Sports Network, 3:30 p.m.By any measure, Astros are team to beat
On
Baseball
DAVE
SHEININKyle Trask is finally the leading man
Six-year backup with Hollywood story leads No. 10 Florida into showdown with No. 7 Auburn
SWIMMING
Natalie Coughlin, one of
the sport’s legends, gets
back in the pool at 37. D2
TRACK AND FIELD
American Dalilah
Muhammad sets a world
mark in 400 hurdles. D2
WNBA FINALS
The Mystics and LaToya
Sanders are focusing on
defense for Game 3. D3
JERRY BREWER
With D.C. poised to allow
sports gambling, Ted
Leonsis is betting big. D3
CAPITALS 2, ISLANDERS 1
Washington’s Samsonov is solid in goal to win NHL debut
STEVEN RYAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
“I thought I was going to be more nervous, but no, I felt normal,” Ilya Samsonov, stopping a shot by the Islanders’ Brock Nelson, said of his NHL debut Friday.Patriots at Redskins
Tomorrow, 1 p.m., WUSA-9
Hurricanes at Capitals | Today, 7 p.m., NBC Sports WashingtonJOHN MCDONNELL/THE WASHINGTON POSTStrasburg dealing deep into the night
Stephen Strasburg took a nohitter into the fifth inning in Friday
night’s Game 2 of the NL Division Series in Los Angeles. The game
ended too late for this edition. Visit us online at washingtonpost.com.