This week, a doubleheader at Pocono Raceway marks the 18th and 19th races of the 36-race NASCAR season: the end of the first half and start of the second.
Despite being only halfway through the season, there has been no shortage of interesting, historic or just downright odd statistical storylines.
Hendrick Motorsports owns the first half
With eight wins in 17 races to start the season, Hendrick Motorsports has already surpassed its total from last season (in 36 races), and its total from the 2018 and 2019 seasons combined. It’s on pace for its first double-digit win season since 2014 (13) and the team record of 18 in 2007 is in play.
Hendrick also enters Pocono on a five-race win streak, the longest by a team since Hendrick won five straight in 2014. Hendrick (who else?) had a six-race win streak in 2007.
The big wins for Hendrick were at the Circuit of the Americas (Chase Elliott) and Charlotte (Kyle Larson), the 268th and 269th wins in team history. The first tied Petty Enterprises’ record for most by a Cup Series team, and the second broke that record.
Petty Enterprises had held that wins record since 1960, even though its last win came courtesy of John Andretti — another great last name in motorsports lore — in 1999.
Hendrick’s 270th win, at Sonoma, came with Larson beating Elliott to the line. It was the fourth straight 1-2 finish for Hendrick, tying the record set by Carl Kiekhaefer’s team in 1956.
Larson comes to Pocono with six consecutive top-two finishes, the seventh different driver in series history to have a streak that long. He joins Richard Petty, David Pearson, Darrell Waltrip, Tim Flock, Jeff Gordon and Kevin Harvick. Harvick was the last to have a streak of six-plus races, going eight straight over the 2014 and 2015 seasons.
Larson wasn’t the only driver hitting milestones for Hendrick in the first half.
Chase Elliott: sixth road course win tied him for third-most in Cup Series history. 40.0 win percentage is second all-time behind Dan Gurney.
William Byron: 11 straight top-10 finishes is fourth-longest streak in team history, behind Jeff Gordon (21 and 14) and Jimmie Johnson (13).
Alex Bowman: 10 laps led in Richmond win was the second-fewest dating back to 1990 (Kevin Harvick: 3 in 2013)
Another milestone victory for Hendrick came with its 267th Cup win, this one at Dover, courtesy of Alex Bowman. What made that win notable was that Larson was second, Elliott third and Byron fourth. It was just the fourth 1-2-3-4 finish for a team in Cup Series history.
Last season, it took nearly the entire year for Kyle Busch to taste victory in the Cup Series, doing it in race 34 of the 36-race season. This season, he got there in race No. 11 at Kansas.
It was his 17th consecutive season with a win, tying David Pearson for the second-longest streak in series history. It trails only Richard Petty’s 18-year run from 1960-77 for Cup Series record.
There’s no reason to believe he can’t get there — he’ll just have to wait until 2023 to have sole possession of that record.
Brad Keselowski winning at Talladega wasn’t a surprise; he has long established himself as one of the premier restrictor plate race drivers in series history.
The way he picked up the victory was more of a surprise, leading only lap 191 (of 188 scheduled laps, thanks to overtime) of the race and winning by about a tenth of a second.
That was Keselowski’s sixth career win with a last-lap pass, putting him one away from the series record (that we can tell — there are several races that don’t have lap-by-lap leaders).
What’s even more amazing is that Talladega was the third time that Keselowski won a race by leading in only the final lap. In Cup Series history, that has happened only 23 other times, with no other driver doing it more than once.
Variety is the spice of life
The Cup Series season started with seven different winners in seven races (and 10 winners in the first 11 races). Going back to the start of the Modern Era in 1972, it’s just the fifth time that a season has started with that many different winners in a row. The only seasons with more were in 2000 (10) and 2003 (9).
And that’s without a pair of the dominant drivers from 2020, Denny Hamlin and Harvick, winning a race yet this season.
The first four winners of the season — Michael McDowell, Christopher Bell, Byron and Larson — combined to win just once all of last season. And none of them finished better than 14th in points. It was the first time since 1986 that the first four winners of a season each had fewer than 10 career wins at that time of their victory.
Those wins by McDowell and Bell were the first of their Cup careers (and Byron’s was just his second win). The only other times in Cup Series history the first two races of a season were won by first-time winners came in 1949 and 1950 — the first two seasons in Cup Series history.
More on McDowell, whose upset win in the Daytona 500 remains one of the best stories in recent memory: He won in his 358th career start; the only other driver in series history with that many starts prior to getting his first win was Michael Waltrip, who won the 2001 Daytona 500 in his 463rd start.
McDowell, like Keselowski, led only the final lap. He’s the third driver to win the 500 leading only in the final lap, joining Austin Dillon in 2018 and Kurt Busch in 2017.
Hamlin still seeking first win
With all the variety in Victory Lane, one driver we haven’t seen win yet is Hamlin, who won seven times last year. But it’s not like Hamlin hasn’t been successful.
Hamlin started the year with eight top-five finishes in the first nine races, the first driver to start a season off like that since Dale Earnhardt in his storied 1987 season. Except “The Intimidator” won six of the first nine races that year.
Hamlin’s year also started with a fifth-place finish at Daytona, after leading 98 laps. The last five drivers to lead at least that many in the Daytona 500 failed to win. The last driver to lead that many and win? Earnhardt, in 1998.
New track … who dis?
For those who wanted to see more variety in the NASCAR schedule, 2021 has been the season for you.
We had the first dirt track race since Sept. 30, 1970. A mere 18,443 days between dirt track races.
We’ve had road course races at Daytona, Austin and Sonoma, with four more to come. Seven road course races crushes the record for most in a season, which was four in the 1957 and 1964 seasons.
There have been first Cup races at Nashville, Circuit of the Americas (Austin) and the Bristol Dirt Track. The Indianapolis Road Course will host its first later this year. The last time we had at least three new venues debut in a season was 1969, when we got inaugural races at Michigan, Kingsport, Dover, Talladega and Texas World Speedway.
Harper went deep off Giants rookie Mason Black, spoiling the major league debut of the right-hander, who pitched into the fifth inning against the team he grew up rooting for.
“I hope he enjoyed it with his family and his teammates and everything else, because you only get one debut,” Harper said.
This season’s Phillies are winning as much as the teams Black cheered for as a kid.
The major-league-leading Phillies (25-11) won their sixth straight and have won 10 of 11 and 17 of 20 to open a three-game lead over Atlanta in the NL East. It’s the team’s best 36-game start to a season since 1993, when Philadelphia won 97 games and reached the World Series, according to ESPN Stats & Information research.
The Phillies have also won 10 straight games at Citizens Bank Park, just two wins shy of matching the team record set in 2012. Philadelphia also set a franchise record with 11 straight wins against NL West opponents.
“I feel like we’re winning in different ways every night. And it’s a different player coming up huge, whether it’s a hitter, a pitcher. It’s never the same guy, which is nice,” catcher J.T. Realmuto said. “There’s not too much pressure on one player. We all feel like we play really well together and we have a lot of fun, and guys contribute on a nightly basis.”
Harper homered for the second straight game, and his eighth of the season made it 4-0 against Black (0-1). Black made his major league debut in front of his parents, younger brother, girlfriend and scores of friends and relatives who made the trip to watch him pitch against his boyhood favorite team.
The 24-year-old Black — named the seventh-best prospect in baseball, per MLB.com — was the Giants’ third-round pick in the 2021 draft out of Lehigh University. Black recorded a 1-2-3 first inning that included strikeouts of Realmuto and Harper, the latter caught looking at an 88 mph changeup.
Black gave up 8 hits, 5 runs and 3 walks. He struck out four in 4⅓ innings.
Wheeler (4-3) showed the rookie how it was done. He rebounded from an 0-3 start — he allowed six runs total in his first three starts — to win his fourth straight start. Wheeler allowed one run, walked one and lowered his ERA to 1.64.
“Wheels today did what Zack kind of does every time he goes out there. It was fun to watch and kept us in the game,” Harper said.
Matt Strahm tossed a scoreless eighth, and Orion Kerkering pitched the ninth to complete the five-hitter.
With shortstop Trea Turner out at least six weeks with a left hamstring strain, his replacements are starting to fill the void. Bryson Stott moved from second base to shortstop and made a great grab on a grounder by Wilmer Flores in the first to start an inning-ending double play. Whit Merrifield started at second and gave the Phillies a 1-0 lead with an RBI single in the fourth.
Harper had a three-run shot in the fifth, and Nick Castellanos, who hit 37 doubles last season, hit his first one of the year later in the inning for a 5-0 lead.
Phillies third baseman Alec Bohm went 0-for-4, ending his hitting streak at 18 games.
CHICAGO — When Justin Steele was injured on Opening Day, the big question for the Chicago Cubs centered on the state of their rotation without their ace left-hander.
That concern faded away over time.
Steele returned to one of baseball’s best rotations on Monday night, starting the opener of a three-game series against the San Diego Padres, and pitched into the fifth inning. He allowed three hits while striking out two Padres before exiting with two outs in the inning and the game tied at 0-0. It was Steele’s first major league appearance since he strained his left hamstring while making a play on a sacrifice bunt at Texas on March 28.
The 28-year-old Steele was a breakout performer last year, going 16-5 with a 3.06 ERA in 30 starts. He made the NL All-Star team for the first time and finished fifth in balloting for the NL Cy Young Award.
Steele made a rehab start with Triple-A Iowa on Wednesday, allowing three runs and six hits in 3 1/3 innings. He was working on a pitch count against San Diego, and when he was removed, he had thrown 68 pitches, 43 for strikes. The Padres’ offense took over from there en route to a 6-3 victory.
Keegan Thompson was optioned to Iowa to make room on the Chicago roster. Thompson is 1-0 with a 3.38 ERA in seven relief appearances for Chicago this season.
The Cubs had a 21-14 record going into the series against the Padres, more than holding their own while Steele was out.
The rotation has played a key role in Chicago’s fast start. Shota Imanaga, who pitches on Tuesday night, is 5-0 with a 0.78 ERA in his first big league season after signing with the Cubs in January. Jameson Taillon (3-0, 1.13 ERA) and Javier Assad (3-0, 1.66 ERA) have been terrific, and young right-handers Hayden Wesneski and Ben Brown also have provided some valuable innings.
“I think our starting pitching has been excellent,” manager Craig Counsell said. “Obviously some of the guys that were in the rotation all year, Shota and Javy, have been brilliant, and Jameson Taillon’s been excellent, and then Hayden and Ben have come up and been really important.”
Going into the matchup with San Diego, the starting staff had a 2.61 ERA in the team’s past 21 games going back to April 14 — the second-best mark in the NL over that stretch, trailing only Philadelphia (2.53).
“I think all those guys have stepped up and really produced for us,” president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said. “And that’s what you need to get through injuries.”
ESPN baseball reporter. Covered the L.A. Rams for ESPN from 2016 to 2018 and the L.A. Angels for MLB.com from 2012 to 2016.
LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers placed another one of their high-leverage relievers on the injured list Monday, when Joe Kelly went down with what the team described as a posterior strain in his right, throwing shoulder.
Kelly, whose IL placement was the corresponding move for activating Walker Buehler ahead of his start against the Miami Marlins, joins fellow late-game relievers Ryan Brasier and Evan Phillips on the shelf, all of whom have suffered their injuries over the past six days.
Brasier (calf strain), Phillips (hamstring strain) and Kelly have accounted for more than a quarter of the Dodgers’ bullpen innings this season. Brusdar Graterol, one of the Dodgers’ primary setup men last year, has yet to make his 2024 debut while recovering from shoulder inflammation, but Blake Treinen returned from a prolonged absence on Sunday.
Kelly, 35, has a 4.73 ERA in 15 appearances this season and was last used to record the final out of the seventh inning in Sunday’s win over the Atlanta Braves.
