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Top local sports stories of 2018

WASHINGTON — What’s the best way to do a year in review?

There were individual moments that will stick in the mind, like Bryce Harper’s final blast of the Home Run Derby, or Braden Holtby’s physics-defying save that swung the Stanley Cup Finals. You could pick out only the positive moments, but that would ignore some of the most important stories of the year.

In the end, we decided the best way to look at 2018 was to acknowledge all the biggest stories, for better and for worse, from a broader lens.

Before we get to the Top 10, here are a few honorable mentions that just missed the cut:

The terrible, horrible, no good, very bad O’s The Baltimore Orioles had three win streaks of at least three games this year. In fact, in late August, they swept the Toronto Blue Jays. Unfortunately, that’s about as good as things got for the O’s, who lost a franchise record 115 games. Just how bad were they? They scored 3.84 runs per game, fewest in the American League, while allowing 5.51, the most in the AL. They finished further out of first place (61 games) than any team since 1942. Chris Davis, their highest-paid player, posted the 20th-worst season, by wins above replacement, in the history of Major League Baseball. They cleaned house at season’s end, replacing both their field and general manager, so expect a much different-looking Orioles team in 2019. (AP Photo/Gail Burton, File)
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Washington Wizards basketball President Ernie Grunfeld speaks during a news conference at the Verizon Center in Washington, Thursday, April 14, 2016. Grunfeld announced that Randy Wittman will not be back as head coach of the Wizards after failing to reach the playoffs this season. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
At the College Park campus, University of Maryland students gathered Thursday afternoon at the steps of an administrative building to remember student-athlete Jordan McNair and to share competing calls to action. (WTOP/Michelle Basch)

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