Larson emerges from Wallace incident to dominate Miami
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Marty Smith
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Ryan McGee
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ESPN Senior Writer- Senior writer for ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com
- 2-time Sports Emmy winner
- 2010, 2014 NMPA Writer of the Year
It’s the business end of the NASCAR Cup Series season. Joey Logano has secured his place in the Nov. 6 championship final race in Phoenix, and seven other drivers are looking to book their tickets to join him.
And while the title fight is as wide open as it’s ever been, there’s still plenty else to talk about, from Kyle Larson‘s Homestead-Miami dominance to Bubba Wallace‘s suspension to who’s primed for a big weekend at Martinsville on Sunday. So, with so much at stake in stock-car racing, ESPN turned to Ryan McGee and Marty Smith for their takes on the final few weeks of the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season.
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McGee: You and I have not talked about this yet, but Bubba Wallace was suspended for a race. It’s the first time a Cup Series driver was parked for an in-race incident since Matt Kenseth was in 2015. Marty, where do you net out on all of that? Because I feel like the repercussions are still rolling.
Smith: I think they absolutely are. And since we haven’t discussed Wallace’s actions, just completely unacceptable in every way. There are certain rules that do not get broken. And the No. 1 unwritten-driver-code rule is you don’t right rear somebody and hook them into the fence at 185 miles an hour.
McGee: In traffic. Out of a turn. All of it was so wrong.
Smith: Every bit of it was just unacceptable. And to quote Logano, who was very outspoken afterward, it could have killed Larson. Fortunately, he wasn’t even injured. And then, after Wallace hooked Larson into the fence, Wallace was extremely frustrated, got out of the car and started shoving Larson, who managed to maintain his composure the entire time and not participate in the fight. I don’t know how he did that, quite frankly.
I understand Wallace’s frustration, stemming from the fact that he felt like he got fenced, but he took that frustration out in a completely overboard and wrong way. If another competitor had run up to me after doing what Wallace did and started shoving me, I certainly wouldn’t have had the composure to walk away from it like Larson did.
McGee: And then turn around and put a beatdown on everybody the very next weekend at Homestead, and look an awful lot like Kyle Larson the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion.
Smith: That’s very apropos of Larson at Homestead-Miami Speedway, where, if you’re going to win, you have to run the top of the track, you have to make the top work. He’s the best maybe ever at making the top work. Larson kind of brought that into the sport in a lot of ways. Dale Earnhardt Jr. was very good at running the top during the later years of his career — really made that momentum off the corner, it was something to behold — but Larson took it to a whole other level with his world-class historic car control from being so adept on dirt.
McGee: I thought it was super crucial for NASCAR to have a weekend like it had at Homestead-Miami, because when it was over, everyone was talking about the race. Everyone was talking about Larson. Everyone was talking about headed to Martinsville, one race to go before the championship final four. As we talk on Tuesday, there is no concern of sitting and waiting on a penalty report or repercussions being handed down by NASCAR, and it feels like every Tuesday for the past two months, we’ve been dealing with something other than racing. So I thought it was a pretty good day for the sport.
Smith: No doubt. And it’s such an interesting time for NASCAR, because all the way back to February when we started this season, you and I just felt a unique energy. And every year, almost invariably, you get into the summer and it’s sort of the doldrums of the season and it’s starting to feel like a really long slog. But I still feel a really new momentum despite the fact that we’re 35 weeks in and I couldn’t begin to tell you who’s going to win the championship. And that is damn rare, man.
That’s another factor in NASCAR’s favor is that it really is shaping up to be kind of the Game 7 idea that they wanted all those years ago. They implemented this “four drivers, one race, winner-take-all” format that invariably seems to have rewarded the best team, but we’ll see what happens in 2022 when we get to Phoenix here in a couple of weeks.
McGee: I have never gone into the last two races of the year having zero clue what’s going to happen. In the first part of our careers, Jeff Gordon would’ve already won the championship a month ago, right? And then we have this, what I still call new format, with the final race being worth everything, but even then, you had a pretty good idea going in of who was the favorite and who wasn’t. And now we’re in a world where Ross Chastain leads the league in top-five finishes, and I think that’s awesome, but it also makes me realize I have zero clue what’s going to happen. And I dig that.
Smith: I still have my money on Chase Elliott. I just feel like that No. 9 car, they just have a very unique chemistry with him and his crew chief Alan Gustafson, and they understand what it’s like to get it done. I think a lot of people right now are kind of thinking, “Okay, might this be Denny Hamlin‘s year? Could this be the time that he closes it out?” And you know, next weekend’s going to be critical for him, because he is so good at these short tracks.
McGee: Martinsville is the best because it’s crazy and it’s unpredictable, but you’re exactly right. We’re going to a place where Hamlin has been racing since he could barely walk, going back to those Allison Legacy cars. That’s the first time I saw Hamlin race. And oh, by the way, you know who else is really good at Martinsville? Bubba Wallace.
Penn State quarterback Drew Allar is set to play in Saturday’s key Big Ten matchup against No. 4 Ohio State.
Allar missed the second half of last week’s win over Wisconsin after suffering a left knee injury, but he was not listed on the injury report for the No. 3 Nittany Lions on Saturday morning.
Penn State coach James Franklin said earlier this week that Allar could be a game-time decision and that backup Beau Pribula would take snaps with Allar in practice.
Allar ranks 10th nationally with a QBR of 83.6. He has completed 71.3% of his passes for 1,640 yards and totaled 15 touchdowns with four interceptions.
Penn State starting defensive lineman Dani Dennis-Sutton will be a game-time decision, a source told ESPN’s Pete Thamel. Dennis-Sutton, who is listed as questionable, is expected to warm up and try to play.
Information from ESPN’s Jake Trotter was used in this report.
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Chris Low, ESPN Senior Writer
WEST POINT, N.Y. — Army star quarterback Bryson Daily will miss Saturday’s game against Air Force with an undisclosed injury/illness, Army officials told ESPN.
Daily leads the country with 19 rushing touchdowns and leads all FBS quarterbacks with 909 rushing yards. He was unable to practice this week. The No. 21 Black Knights had a bye last weekend after beating East Carolina 45-28 on Oct. 19 to win their seventh straight game this season.
In the win over ECU, Daily carried the ball 31 times for a career-high 171 yards and accounted for six touchdowns, five rushing and one passing. The 6-foot, 221-pound senior has already set Army single-season records for touchdowns responsible for (26) and rushing touchdowns (19) in seven games.
With Daily sidelined, junior Dewayne Coleman will fill in at quarterback and make his first career start. Daily, one of four team captains, has been Army’s starting quarterback over the past two seasons and the main cog in a Black Knights offense that has eclipsed 400 yards of total offense in all seven games this season.
Army (7-0, 6-0) travels to North Texas next week for an AAC contest. They get a bye week on Nov. 16 and then face Notre Dame on Nov. 23 at Yankee Stadium.
There’s no timetable at this point on how long Daily might be out of the lineup, but Army officials don’t think it’s a season-ending setback.
Army, off to its best start in nearly 30 years, will be one of the top contenders for the Group of 5’s spot in the College Football Playoff if the Black Knights can win the American Athletic Conference championship.
The 2024 World Series ended with the Los Angeles Dodgers winning the championship in a stunning comeback in Game 5, with Walker Buehler the unlikely pitcher to close out the 7-6 win over the New York Yankees. First baseman Freddie Freeman was handed the World Series MVP award for his record-tying 12-RBI performance.
But that doesn’t tell the full story of everyone who played a starring role in October — a postseason that featured a record six grand slams, among other wildness. So, to honor the best of the entire postseason, we’ve created our first MLB All-October Team.
From wild-card-round sensations to World Series standouts, here are the players our ESPN MLB panel of experts voted as the best of the best at every position along with some award hardware for the brightest stars of October.
2024 All-October Team
Catcher: Kyle Higashioka, San Diego Padres
Why he’s here: To be honest, it wasn’t a great playoffs for catchers — they hit just .184/.254/.310. Higashioka is the one catcher who did hit, belting three home runs and driving in five runs in the seven games the Padres played.
Honorable mention: Will Smith, Los Angeles Dodgers
1B: Freddie Freeman, Los Angeles Dodgers
Why he’s here: Freeman didn’t have an extra-base hit and drove in just one run in the first two rounds of the playoffs as he tried to play through the severely sprained ankle he suffered at the end of the regular season. He didn’t even play in two games of the NLCS and required hours of physical therapy before each game just to get on the field. But the five days off before the World Series clearly helped, and he homered in the first four games, including his dramatic walk-off grand slam in Game 1 that will go down as not only the signature World Series moment of 2024 — but a World Series moment for the ages.
Honorable mention: Pete Alonso, New York Mets
2B: Gleyber Torres, New York Yankees
Why he’s here: Torres had a solid October as he heads into free agency, although he had little competition here. Indeed, second basemen collectively hit just .219 with three home runs the entire playoffs — two of those from Torres — and drove in 24 runs, with Torres driving in eight himself. He had three multihit games and scored five runs in five games in the ALCS, while also taking walks to help set the table for Juan Soto.
Honorable mention: Brice Turang, Milwaukee Brewers
3B: Mark Vientos, New York Mets
Why he’s here: Max Muncy set a record when he reached base 17 times in the NLCS, including a single-postseason-record 12 times in a row, but he went hitless in the World Series. Vientos, meanwhile, had a stellar first trip to the postseason, hitting .327/.362/.636 with five home runs and 14 RBIs in 13 games. That followed a breakout regular season in which he posted an .837 OPS with 27 home runs in just 111 games. He looks like he’ll be a fixture in the middle of the Mets’ lineup for years to come.
Honorable mention: Muncy, Los Angeles Dodgers
SS: Tommy Edman, Los Angeles Dodgers
Why he’s here: Edman was an under-the-radar pickup at the trade deadline, in part because he was still injured and hadn’t yet played for the St. Louis Cardinals. Most of Edman’s starts came at shortstop, especially after Miguel Rojas was injured in the NLDS, but his bat got him here. Edman was the NLCS MVP after hitting .407 with a record-tying 11 RBIs in the series. He had started at cleanup just twice in his career but was slotted there twice against the Mets, driving in seven runs in those two games. Then he went 2-for-4 in each of the first two games of the World Series, including a home run in Game 2, and finished the Fall Classic hitting .294/.400/.588 with six runs.
Honorable mention: Francisco Lindor, New York Mets
OF: Mookie Betts, Los Angeles Dodgers
OF: Juan Soto, New York Yankees
OF: Enrique Hernandez, Los Angeles Dodgers
Why they’re here: Betts entered this postseason in a 3-for-38 postseason slump going back to the end of the 2021 NLCS — and it initially looked like it would be more of the same when he went 0-for-6 the first two games of the NLDS, including being robbed of a home run courtesy of Jurickson Profar. Everything turned in Game 3 when Profar almost robbed him of another home run — but didn’t. After that, Betts was in the middle of most of the Dodgers’ big rallies, hitting .321/.394/.625 with four home runs and 16 RBIs over the Dodgers’ final 14 playoff games.
Soto’s at-bats spoke for themselves: He never seemed to have a bad one. His big at-bat was the three-run home run in the 10th inning of Game 5 of the ALCS to send the Yankees to the World Series. Getting intentionally walked twice while batting in front of Aaron Judge speaks to Judge’s struggles, yes — but also to how locked in Soto was all postseason. He finished the postseason slashing .327/.469/.633 with 4 home runs, 9 RBIs and 14 walks in 14 games.
Hernandez actually began October on the bench, but we’ve seen him perform big in the postseason before, and he stepped up when Rojas was injured in the NLDS. Hernandez homered in the Dodgers’ 2-0 victory to close out the Padres in the NLDS, had a big two-run home run against the Mets in Game 3 of the NLCS and got the series-turning five-run rally against the Yankees in Game 5 started with a leadoff single in the fifth as well as the series-winning rally in the eighth with another leadoff base hit. Overall, he hit .294/.357/.451 with 11 runs and six RBIs.
Honorable mentions: Steven Kwan, Cleveland Guardians; Teoscar Hernandez, Los Angeles Dodgers; Fernando Tatis Jr., San Diego Padres
DH: Giancarlo Stanton, New York Yankees
Why he’s here: The Yankees were often a two-man show in the postseason, just like they were in the regular season — except it was Soto and Stanton, not Soto and Judge. Stanton blasted seven home runs in the playoffs, including in the final three games of the ALCS (earning MVP honors) and in Games 1 and 5 of the World Series. He finished the playoffs hitting .273/.339/.709, and those seven homers are the most in a single postseason in Yankees history.
Honorable mention: Shohei Ohtani, Los Angeles Dodgers; David Fry, Cleveland Guardians
SP: Gerrit Cole, New York Yankees
SP: Tarik Skubal, Detroit Tigers
Why they’re here: Certainly, it seems as if the status of the starting pitcher in the postseason continues to decline — although, that doesn’t mean they’re not important. There were certainly some stellar individual outings along the way: Corbin Burnes allowed one run in eight innings (but lost 1-0) for the Baltimore Orioles; Philadelphia Phillies ace Zack Wheeler allowed one hit in seven scoreless innings (but that would be his only start); and the Padres’ Michael King fanned 12 to beat the Atlanta Braves in the NLDS. Skubal had two scoreless starts against the Houston Astros in the wild-card series and Cleveland Guardians in the ALDS, confirming his status as one of the best in the game — or maybe the best, as his soon-to-be AL Cy Young Award will attest.
Cole was really the one consistent starter throughout the postseason, making five starts with a 2.17 ERA. Unfortunately, that ERA doesn’t register the five unearned runs from the final game of the World Series when the Yankees’ defense turned into a comedy of errors — including Cole himself opening up the floodgates by failing to cover first base to get what would have been the inning-ending out.
Honorable mention: Walker Buehler, Los Angeles Dodgers; Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Los Angeles Dodgers; Sean Manaea, New York Mets; Seth Lugo, Kansas City Royals
RP: Luke Weaver, New York Yankees
RP: Blake Treinen, Los Angeles Dodgers
Why they’re here: It also wasn’t the best of postseasons for closers — not even great ones. The Guardians’ Emmanuel Clase allowed five earned runs all regular season — and then eight in the playoffs. Milwaukee Brewers closer Devin Williams blew that wild-card game against the Mets. All-Star Jeff Hoffman lost two games for the Phillies. Weaver, however, was the one consistent late-game performer and was great while often pitching more than one inning. He posted a 1.76 ERA across 15⅓ innings. Who knows how the World Series ends if Yankees manager Aaron Boone keeps Weaver in the game in the 10th inning of Game 1. (Weaver had thrown just 19 pitches.)
Treinen, meanwhile, capped his comeback season — he had missed almost all of 2022 and then all of 2023 — with a 2.19 ERA across 12⅓ innings, winning two games and saving three others. In the World Series clincher, he recorded seven outs and got out of a two-on, no-out jam in the eighth inning to preserve the Dodgers’ 7-6 lead before handing the ball to Buehler to close out the ninth.
Honorable mention: Cade Smith, Cleveland Guardians; Michael Kopech, Los Angeles Dodgers; Beau Brieske, Detroit Tigers
All-October Award Winners
October MVP: Freddie Freeman
Pitchers of the month: Gerrit Cole, Walker Buehler (tie)
Best October introduction: Mark Vientos
Clutch performer: Freeman
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