D2 EZ SU THE WASHINGTON POST.THURSDAY, AUGUST 22 , 2019
BY JESSE DOUGHERTYpittsburgh — If someone made a list
of Juan Soto’s baseball limitations
before this season, let’s hope they used a
pencil.
The 20-year-old didn’t appear to be a
threat on the base paths heading into
his second year in the majors. But then
he expanded his skill set, as he often
has, and now has to be minded
whenever he leads off first base. Soto
has 12 steals this season and has been
caught just once after swiping only five
bags as a rookie in 2018.
Through the Washington Nationals’
4-1 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates on
Tuesday, Soto had 500 plate
appearances in 114 games. He finished
last season with 494 plate appearances
in 116 games. This provides an apt year-
to-year offensive comparison and shows
that the biggest difference with Soto,
the Nationals’ left fielder of the present
and future, is his tendency to run.
Soto’s final rookie stat line: 77 runs,
121 hits, 25 doubles, 22 home runs,
70 RBI, 79 walks, 99 strikeouts,
.292 average, .406 on-base percentage,
.517 slugging percentage and a
142 OPS+, an advanced statistic that
measures hitters against a league
average and factors in opponents and
ballparks played in. His stat line this
season, in a near-identical sample size:
79 runs, 122 hits, 20 doubles, 28 home
runs, 83 RBI, 78 walks, 100 strikeouts,
.290 batting average, .401 on-base
percentage, .557 slugging and a
139 OPS+. Most numbers are almost
equal. His added power fits a
leaguewide trend. The steals, already
seven more with six weeks to play, are
what really stand out.
“That’s a lot,” Soto said with a big
grin, back when he was at 10 steals. “I’vebeen working really hard on it, so now I
see the results that make me really
happy. You never know, maybe I get 20
or something like that.”
The first step was getting faster, plain
and simple, and Soto put that at the top
of his offseason to-do list. That meant
never skipping leg day in the gym. That
meant going to the beach every
Saturday, in his hometown of Santo
Domingo, Dominican Republic, and
trudging through the ankle-high sand,
sometimes pulling weights along with
him. Once he got to spring training, a bit
slimmer, a bit stronger in his lower half,
Soto began working with first base
coach Tim Bogar on how to better read
pitchers.
Bogar heads the base stealing efforts
and often uses what the Nationals call
“hot counts” to improve odds. A hot
count is one in which a pitcher has a low
throw-over percentage — meaning he
rarely tries to pick off at first base — and
tends to throw breaking balls to the
batter. Breaking balls are easier to steal
on because they get to the plate slower
and can be hard for the catcher to
handle. Hot counts don’t really apply to
Trea Turner or Victor Robles, known
base stealers who are treated
accordingly. But with Soto, who is much
closer to average speed, the formula
often applies.
That has helped Soto turn a
deficiency, or a non-skill, into a
deceptive strength. Teams don’t tend to
Soto like a base stealer, so he exploitsthem. He plays the numbers game. He
often picks a specific count to run in,
talking quietly with Bogar once he
reaches first, and then uses instincts to
time the pitcher and take off.
“With Juan, it’s a great blend of
understanding analytics and what we’re
trying to do but also using his natural
ability and feel for the game,” Bogar
said. “That can be a dangerous
combination, and it takes a lot of work.
But there’s no questioning that he’ll put
in all the work. Stealing has become
another part of what he looks at every
day.”
He figures Soto will get watched
more closely now because teams can
easily spot the steals uptick in the
scouting report. But that’s fine with
Bogar and Manager Dave Martinez.
Even if Soto’s steals numbers plateau
and he doesn’t get to 20 or even 15, the
Nationals will benefit from pitchers
paying more attention to him. They
already have to worry about Turner,
Robles and, to a lesser extent, Adam
Eaton on the base paths. Now, with their
cleanup hitter stealing bases, there are
few breaks for pitchers, who ultimately
want to focus on the plate.
It’s another way Soto can bother
opposing teams, as if his swing weren’t
enough.
“Think about it this way: You go
through a whole at-bat trying to get
Juan Soto out, you’re grinding, and
instead he walks or singles or whatever,”
Bogar said. “Now you have a premier
power hitter on first base, and that
usually means you can just try and get
the next guy. You can ignore him. But
not Juan, and that probably gets guys at
least a bit ticked off.”
Yeah, when you think about it that
way, it doesn’t sound great.
[email protected]QUOTABLE“If I had a problem with
someone, I’m pretty
sure I’ve made it very
clear I will say I have a
problem with someone.”
BAKER MAYFIELD,
Browns quarterback, who said he
contacted Giants rookie quarterback
Daniel Jones to “clear the air” about
comments Mayfield made in a recent
interview that Mayfield said were
taken out of context.NATIONALSSoto also stealing the spotlight
PRO FOOTBALLBY CINDY BORENAs far as Carli Lloyd was con-
cerned, she was on just another
field, doing what she does best.
The difference Tuesday was
that she was on an NFL field when
she pulled back her right leg and
sent a ball straight and true for
55 yards, stirring up all sorts of
buzz with a viral video. Lloyd, a
two-time World Cup winner,
twice an Olympic gold medalist
and twice FIFA player of the year,
made football look as easy as
futbol as Sam Koch of the Balti-
more Ravens held for her field
goal attempt after a joint practice
with the Philadelphia Eagles.
Her kick was money. So much
so that it got one veteran NFL
observer musing about whether
the time was approaching when a
woman might kick for an NFL
team. “Honestly, I don’t think it
will be long before we see a wom-
an break through this NFL bar-
rier,” Gil Brandt, the Dallas Cow-
boys’ vice president of player per-
sonnel from 1960 to 1988, tweet-
ed.
Note that Lloyd, a 37-year-old
who plays for the NWSL’s Sky
Blue franchise in New Jersey,
wasn’t facing pressure and she
was taking too many approach
steps. All of which was pointed
out to Brandt, who countered, “I
heard the same kind of things
when I was bringing in track
athletes and soccer players back
in the ’60s.”
Brandt wasn’t kidding, and he
offered a reminder of just how
problematic kicking was in the
NFL last season. Mason Crosby of
the Green Bay Packers missed five
kicks in one game (four field goals
and one extra point); Week 11 was
a record-setting day for missed
extra-point attempts. And per-
haps no team had a more igno-
minious experience than the Chi-
cago Bears, whose “double-doink”
disaster occurred when Cody Par-
key’s potential game-winner from
43 yards out was tipped at the
line, then hit the left upright and
the crossbar. The Bears lost that
wild-card game, 16-15, to the Ea-
gles. Parkey was cut.
“I’d give her an honest tryout,”
Brandt tweeted, “if I were, say, the
Bears.”
Eagles kicker Jake Elliott was
impressed. “Unreal stuff,” he
tweeted after she made several
field goals.
A New Jersey native and an
Eagles fan, Lloyd said she wasn’t
actually present to make a case
for an NFL career as she worked
with, among others, Ravens kick-
er Justin Tucker and Elliott.
“It’s obviously something you
don’t get to see very often,” she
told NBC Sports Philadelphia.
“You get to see the guys playing on
a week-to-week basis, but to see
what goes into it all — the staff,
some of the guys doing extra stuff
afterward — it’s cool. It’s differ-
ent. This is when all the real stuff
happens. I was glad to be a part of
it.”
[email protected]Tryout talk
kicked up
by Lloyd’s
55-yard FG
BY MATT BONESTEELWashington’s XFL team already
had a coach/general manager (Pep
Hamilton) and a stadium (Audi
Field). Now it has a name: the D.C.
Defenders, who will begin play
with seven other teams in the re-
born alternative to the NFL in
February.
The Defenders’ logo features a
shield with three white stars and
crossed lightning bolts.
The other nicknames: St. Louis
BattleHawks, Tampa Bay Vipers,
New York Guardians, Seattle
Dragons, Los Angeles Wildcats,
Houston Roughnecks and Dallas
Renegades.
The original XFL crashed and
burned in 2001, the victim of a
rushed gestation process, silly
gimmicks, crass marketing, sub-
standard play and plunging televi-
sion ratings. The new version also
is promising to differentiate itself
from the NFL with more action
and scoring, less downtime, quick-
er games and safer play.
This time, however, the XFL is
putting much more thought into
the process of getting a new league
off the ground, with Commissioner
Oliver Luck — a former NCAA ad-
ministrator, pro sports executive
and father of Indianapolis Colts
quarterback Andrew Luck — tap-
ping the minds of not only football
experts but also those from Silicon
Valley and the medical community.
Among the new concepts the
XFL plans on introducing for its
second inaugural season:
A shootout-style overtime:
Each team will line up 10 yards
from the end zone and attempt a
scoring play. Both get five tries,
and the team that converts the
most scores wins the game.
No kicked extra points. One
point will be given after a touch-
down for scoring from the 2-yard
line, two points for scoring from
the 5 and three points for scoring
from the 15.
Offenses will get unlimited
forward passes from behind the
line of scrimmage.
“We don’t want to do gim-
micks,” Oliver Luck told The
Washington Post earlier this year.
“These are legitimate improve-
ments to the game.”
[email protected]
D.C. SPORTS BOG
District’s
XFL team
is named
Defenders
PATRICK SEMANSKY/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Juan Soto had five stolen bases last year in 116 games and has 12 this year in 114 games — with six weeks left in the season.Nats outfielder got faster
in the offseason and is picking
his moments on base pathswashingtonpost.com/sports
GOLF
A Tour Championship
unlike any other is set
Tiger Woods’s win at last
year’s Tour Championship was
one of the more indelible
moments of the 2018 PGA Tour
season and maybe of Woods’s
storied career. The victory ended
a five-year drought after his
career was derailed by physical
and personal issues, and the
galleries at East Lake Golf Club in
Atlanta burst through the
security cordons to celebrate
with him as he walked up the
18th fairway on Sunday.
It was quite the scene.
But a few minutes before that
chaotic scene at No. 18, Justin
Rose tapped in for a birdie that
elicited a much milder
celebration yet still was one of the
biggest putts of his career
because it cemented his win in
the 2018 FedEx Cup playoffs.
Woods took home one trophy,
for winning the Tour
Championship itself. Rose took
home another, plus the
$10 million prize check that came
with winning the tour’s season-
long points race even though he
finished the tournament in a tie
for fourth, five strokes behind
Woods. It was all somewhat
confusing.
Starting this year, the FedEx
Cup points leader entering the
30-player Tour Championship
will start with at least a two-
stroke lead on everyone else.
The golfer who is second in
points will start two behind the
leader, third place will be three
shots back and all the way down
to the golfers ranked 26th
through 30th, who will have to
erase a 10-stroke deficit over
four days if they want to win the
Tour Championship and FedEx
Cup.
The PGA Tour is calling this
adjusted scoring system “Starting
Strokes.” Whoever finishes the
tournament with the lowest score
after the Starting Strokes are
applied wins both the event and
the FedEx Cup, plus the now
$15 million in prize money and
five-year PGA Tour exemption
that come with them.
— Matt BonesteelFIGURE SKATING
Richard Callaghan, who
coached Tara Lipinski to
Olympic gold, was banned from
figure skating by the U.S. Center
for SafeSport for sexual
misconduct.
Callaghan, who also coachedsix-time U.S. champion Todd
Eldredge, was ruled
“permanently ineligible” for
actions involving a minor.
Callaghan was accused by a
former student, Adam Schmidt,
in a lawsuit. Schmidt alleged that
Callaghan sexually abused him
from 1999 to 2001. Schmidt was
14 in 1999.
Now 73, Callaghan was
suspended in March 2018 by
SafeSport and by the federation.
He sued SafeSport, but the
lawsuit was dismissed.SOCCER
Olympiakos and Dinamo
Zagreb took big steps toward
returning to the Champions
League group stage with
convincing wins in the first leg of
their playoff-round games.Olympiakos scored three late
goals to beat Russian debutant
Krasnodar, 4-0, and Dinamo
struck twice in the first half-hour
in a 2-0 win over Rosenborg.
Young Boys was the only home
team not to win, needing a 76th-
minute penalty awarded by video
review — and scored by French
veteran Guillaume Hoarau — to
secure a 2-2 draw with Red Star
Belgrade....
Valentín Castellanos scored in
the 36th minute, Sean Johnson
got his seventh shutout of the
season, and New York City FC
beat the Columbus Crew, 1-0, in
an MLS game in New York....
The Montreal Impact fired
coach Remi Garde and replaced
him with Wilmer Cabrera. The
move comes 27 games into the
Garde’s second season.MISC.
South Riding (Va.) lost to
Wailuku (Hawaii), 12-9, in a U.S.
semifinal game at the Little
League World Series in South
Williamsport, Pa. South Riding,
the Southeast Region champion,
will face Southwest champion
River Ridge (La.) on Thursday,
with the winner advancing to the
U.S. title game against Hawaii on
Saturday....
Wisconsin wide receiver
Quintez Cephus returned to
practice, though he is not eligible
to play in games yet at least inpart because he lacks credits after
he was expelled this past spring
amid sexual assault allegations.
The Wisconsin athletic
department said this week that
Cephus won’t play in games until
unspecified “eligibility issues” are
resolved....
The Minnesota Wild hired Bill
Guerin, who won two Stanley
Cups as a player and two more
titles in the front office with the
Pittsburgh Penguins, as its
general manager.
— From news services
and staff reportsDIGEST
GOLF
5 a.m. European Tour: Scandinavian Invitation, first round » Golf Channel
9:30 a.m. LPGA Tour: CP Women’s Open, first round » Golf Channel
1 p.m. PGA Tour: Tour Championship, first round » Golf Channel
6 p.m. Korn Ferry Tour: Boise Open, first round » Golf Channel
LITTLE LEAGUE WORLD SERIES
3 p.m. International semifinal: Pabao (Curaçao) vs. Chungnam (S. Korea) » ESPN
7 p.m. U.S. semifinal: River Ridge (La.) vs. South Riding (Va.) » ESPN
SOCCER
6:15 p.m. Copa Libertadores, quarterfinal (first leg): Cerro Porteno at River Plate »
beIN Sports
9:30 p.m. MLS: Minnesota at Sporting KC » ESPN
COLLEGE SOCCER
7 p.m. Women’s: North Carolina State at South Carolina » SEC Network
TENNIS
11 a.m. U.S. Open qualifying, second round » ESPNews
11 a.m. WTA: Bronx Open, quarterfinals » Tennis Channel
3 p.m. ATP: Winston-Salem Open, quarterfinals » Tennis Channel
ATHLETICS
7 p.m. Aurora Games: Day 3, basketball » ESPNUTELEVISION AND RADIO
MLB
2 p.m. San Francisco at Chicago Cubs » MLB Network
7 p.m. Washington at Pittsburgh » MASN, WJFK (106.7 FM), WFED (1500 AM)
7 p.m. Tampa Bay at Baltimore » MASN 2
7 p.m. Cleveland at New York Mets » MLB Network
10 p.m. New York Yankees at Oakland » MLB Network (joined in progress)
NFL PRESEASON
7:30 p.m. Washington at Atlanta » NBC Sports Washington, WRC (Ch. 4), WBFF (Ch. 45),
WTEM (980 AM), WMAL (105.9 AM), WJFK (1580 AM Spanish broadcast)
7:30 p.m. Baltimore at Philadelphia » WJLA (Ch. 7), WBAL (Ch. 11), WWDC (104.7 FM),
WIYY (97.9 FM)
8 p.m. Jacksonville at Miami » WTTG (Ch. 5)
WNBA
10:30 p.m. Indiana at Los Angeles » CBS Sports Network